


Beta Release

by goodnightfern (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Castiel, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Body Horror, Bullshit Chemistry, Classism, Conspiracy Theories, Futuristic drugs, Gonzo Journalism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Omega Dean, PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress, Soylent Green - Freeform, This is Not the ABO You are Looking For, Trashy Sci-Fi, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:00:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 42,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7052866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/goodnightfern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel may be defective, but even an Alpha like him can serve the Sphere. In the lower levels a group of rebel Omegas are making headway, Intelligence wants to send in an infiltrator, and Castiel is just the Alpha for the job. </p><p>In the bowels of the City, Dean stands up for the rights of Omegas and lower-class Betas. There's something rotten in the Courts, in the brood-farms, in the entire structure of the Sphere, and Dean will do anything to find the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> read [the warnings](http://spoopernaptime.tumblr.com/post/145239343521/this-is-just-a-post-for-me-to-link-back-to-when-i) y'all please (link is to the tumblr post i made)
> 
> This is basically a love letter to trashy sci-fi as well as me taking this Omegaverse thing and running with it. It's an odd one, and updates will be sporadic since I somehow signed up for two big bangs but I'm having a lot of fun and I hope you will have fun too? I'm not going to say this is garbage. but.

Flying across the grid, Castiel sees the winking purple lines of his fellow Alpha's ships flying in a strict V formation. Ahead is the enemy, orange insects rising from the horizon. The ships break formation, spinning, and the signal comes in from his own side. Stay in formation. 

Cas says nothing when the head of the V explodes. Michael, Anael, and Raphael are out of the scene already. Wheeling his ship about, he goes up and over, going beyond the grid to master the potential of space. Other Alphas rise and dip to follow him. Balthazar's maneuvers are too flashy. Waste of fuel. Hanael is holding up, but her form is too rigid. Six bombs are headed Castiel's way but he rises another level, locks his tracking beams onto one of the bombs. Gains control. Reverses. The enemy ship explodes, and he flies faster, harder, getting to the rear of the enemy to attack from behind. 

The chaos of battle erupts into neon lines and scattered explosions across the grid. Castiel thinks about the release of his natural Alpha aggression in the service of the Federation. He does not think about the lives of the crewmen aboard these enemy ships. His growl fills the confines of the ship, erupting into a roar as the enemy ship explode into technicolor bloodspray.

Some of the Alphas imagine the training sims are real. All the better for them. 

When the simulation ends he's blinking against the sudden white lights. He takes off his helmet, shakes his head to unstick his hair. Around him the other Alphas are chatting, congratulating each other. 

A hand claps down on Castiel's shoulder. He looks up to see Uriel, swinging his dreadlocks free of the helmet. "You're getting fast, brother."

"What do you think I do all day?" 

"Jerk off?" Uriel arches a brow, and Castiel grins. 

The mess hall is walled with a deep red, the better to stimulate the endless hunger of Alphas. Already a fight is breaking out on one table. Michael and Lucifer at it again. Castiel dodges Lucifer's mashed potatoes to find a place in line, but Uriel is still watching the fight.

Castiel nudges him. "You know, back in the day, they called that sexual tension."

Uriel shoots him a sharp look. 

Castiel needs to learn how to shut his mouth sometimes. As if an Alpha could ever fuck another Alpha. Masturbation is encouraged, but the annual mating has already passed. At thirty Cas has sired fifteen children, all on anonymous Omegas. Fortunately he's been able to get away with artificial insemination. He knows Omegas are nothing but submissive holes to impregnate, but it still... 

_Bad Alpha._

From the maker screen Castiel selects a whole roast chicken with a side of greens. The chicken lands from the chute with a jiggle. Uriel selects two steaks of the bison-elk hybrid. Cas frowns, wonders if he should've selected red meat. He'll never be as big as Uriel, but he's been beefing up. 

"Excuse me," Cas says, darting back in the line. He presses the buttons on the food selection screen. One extra bison-elk steak. He's already put an inch on his good arm in mass; he needs the protein. 

Red meat. Red walls. Red jumpsuits. Raised voices bouncing off the slick walls and steel tables, the sounds of forks stabbing steaks and fists hitting the table. All the better to rile up the blood, keep the Alpha beat thrumming. Castiel focuses on the rise and fall of the cacophony, finding his own current until he's standing on his seat demonstrating his latest workout routine to Uriel and Balthazar. So begins the challenge. Uriel knocks his juice to the floor during the arm-wrestling match. 

After filing out of the mess hall there's another round in the gymnasium. Beneath the red banners Castiel adds an extra plate to his rack, lets Balthazar spot him as he grits his teeth and lifts. A fight starts somewhere around the treadmills, Bal runs off to the gathering circle, but Cas moves on to the deadlifts, focusing on his own sweaty face in the mirror. When Anael and Lucifer roll around to the squat rack, still biting and wrestling, he throws them a cursory kick and roars at the Alpha's crowding into his space.

After, as he enters his dorm, he's surprised to see a message on his com-tab. Tapping the flat white screen, he opens it and scans the pictograms. A summons from the Commander - in his private office.

The hidden voice in Castiel's head must be silenced before he can knock on the door. This may be a new path - not an end, he tells himself, but the knock echoes like the shutdown-chime of the Station's com.

"Come on in," the Commander calls. Well, he prefers to be called Chuck. But Castiel has never let the Commander's relaxed demeanor trick him into thinking he is anything less than the ultimate authority here at the Station. The Commander has one foot on top the desk, scrolling through his com-tab. He gestures for Castiel to take a seat, grinning. "Siddown. We should chat."

"Is there a problem, Co- Chuck?"

"No! No, no, no. Unless you think it's a problem, in which case you should probably tell me, but... I've been reviewing your work, Castiel. You're a stand-out candidate."

That could mean anything. Castiel says nothing, but he lowers himself into the seat.

"You're fast. You're smart. And you're a little bit sneaky. You know, a lot of the other Alphas think you're some kind of freak." 

"I'm aware," Castiel drawls, before catching himself and sitting up straight. The Commander is not one to be snarked with. "I'm a virgin, I'm six feet tall, my bench press is only double my weight - "

"That might be true, Cas. But you've got something they lack." Chuck swings his foot down, leans forward to rest his elbows on the deck. "You're not some big, dumb, brute. Alpha's don't have minds of their own, but you've been displaying levels of intelligence unprecedented for an Alpha. That maneuver you did in last weeks simulation? Applying a sneak attack? You got a brain, kiddo. That extra spark."

"I'm... I'm not sure what you mean, Chuck."

"Tell me. Why did you opt out of the mating?"

"I..."

"You see Omegas as people."

"Not really - I know Uriel says things, but -"

"Cas. Castiel. Listen. It's okay. That's kind of what we're looking for. See, here's the thing about Omegas. They _are_ people. Crazy, right? Yet we can grow any kind of meat in the world but human. You know what I mean? In order for the race to survive, we need Omegas. Womb-carriers they may be, but they're still people. Hell, we've had our eyes on you since Raphael attacked you in your fifth year of Academy. You didn’t even fight back!"

“It wouldn't have helped a thing.” The slick metal of the chair is cold under the fingers of his bad hand. He grips tighter, ignoring the bite of sharp edges. The blocky shapes of his good hand lie still, rubberized palm hidden in a fist. "What do you mean by we?"

Chuck presses a button on his desk. A grid forms on the left wall, falls back to reveal an door. 

A short, severe-looking woman enters. Like Chuck, she's a Beta, and her blue eyes scan Castiel with typical disinterest. Not for the first time Castiel wonders what Betas see when they see Alphas and Omegas.

"Naomi Waters," Chuck announces. "Head of central intelligence. I'll leave it you, Naomi."

The sound of her heels is clinking ice-cubes in a glass. She rests a proprietary hand on the back of Castiel's chair. "Hello, Castiel."


	2. Chapter 2

The headquarters of Intelligence are draped in black. Castiel's feet sound hollow on the red stone - deep wine-red, darker than the inlaid mahogany. But the windows are glazed an Omega blue, and the pillars of the arcade are pure purple. The color of synergy. Soft Beta scent perfumes the air, raising Castiel's hackles. Castiel is obviously the only Alpha here, and he isn't even wearing proper restraints. They sprayed him before entering in scent blockers, injected hormone suppressants into his upper arm, but that's it. Already this display of trust makes him nervous. 

Naomi pauses before a set of massive steel doors, turns to look at him.

"Castiel? Are you with me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Come on, Alpha."

The arcade beyond the doors is massive and many-columned, reminiscent of the cathedrals the old humans once built to false gods. At the far nave is the sigil of the City, in the hidden language only Betas are permitted to read. Long banners drape from invisble balconies, the insignia of the Elite dominating the Alphas and Omegas, bound on a field of purple. This is the language meant for Castiel to read. 

At the podium Naomi and the other Elites sit still as steel. Castiel forces his body back under control. 

The dispatch is direct and to the point. There's rogue Omegas down in the City. Uniting together, forming a front, broadcasting dangerous ideas. Even Betas have been recruited to the cause. It's a delicate mission requiring a deep undercover agent. The fact that Castiel will have to subdue them back into the farming districts, if not kill them outright, if anything goes wrong goes unsaid. What definitely goes said, though, is the fact that Castiel is the only Alpha for the job. 

"Why me?" Castiel asks. Perhaps it's impudent, but they all know he's defective anyways.

"Intelligence employs many Alphas, not unlike you," Naomi says. "You have the unique combination of military training, stealth ability, speed, physical strength - all typical Alpha attributes, but every so often we find an Alpha with a little something more up on top. Cleverness, Castiel. Sensibility. Logic. This is a highly specialized job. You'll be required to blend in with Betas, feign sympathy for Omegas - your small size actually gives you an advantage."

Castiel wants to protest that he isn't small, but the truth is he stands at an even five-foot eleven. Tall for a Beta, but tiny for an Alpha. Naomi continues. 

"Considering how insidious this movement is, we simply can't trust any Betas. They think too much for themselves. We've already had two agents turn their backs on the Sphere - we'll give you complete downloads of their information, of course, but don't arrest them until we give you the signal. 

You are, without a doubt, exactly what we're looking for."

Unlike a Beta, Castiel is also expendable. Controllable. This he knows, but he swallows down. 

Perhaps it's his wrong patterns of thought that make him special. Maybe even a broken Alpha can serve the Sphere. 

The ride down is too fast for Castiel to catch a proper glimpse. The Station is at the top of the Sphere, protecting the Courts where the Beta elites live. He's been to the Courts on occasion, but the City below has never been more than a hazy miasma of smokestacks and grime. Lower Betas live there, as well as the Omegas. In the flashes he can make out the high towers of the lower-class Betas, the shanty-houses of the Omegas. 

He has to take pills to mask his scent, live in a Beta podblock on the south side of the City. He could never pass for Omega, but here even some of the Betas are bigger and taller than him. The neighborhood is close enough to the shantytowns that he can smell them from the balcony. 

When Castiel was born in the breeding factories, he was immediately sent to the Academy, then the Station. It's strange to sleep without the scent of another Alpha nearby. To install his own, small food unit. Just having his own space is baffling. Living beyond the Commander's eye is confusing. He has his com-tab, and he must check in daily with his superiors, but elsewise he's on his own. If his neighbors ask, he sells holovision ad space. An easy task to complete from home, low-profile and low-paying enough to justify living amongst factory workers.

The City itself is unlike anything he could have imagined.

Madness at every street corner, chaos from the gutters to the ceilings. Ads for sex pills promising Alpha erections and Omega endurance blare from the holoscreens. Cheap one-trick food-grow units. Body mods ranging from the uncomfortable to the dangerous, all hackishly welded onto their owners. Cas tugs on his coat sleeve to hide the own clean, polished lines of his good hand. Many of the Betas wear mod-headsets, eyescreens, and the like, so at least he doesn't look out of place wearing sunglasses at night. His own left eye is a clear product of military technology, something inexplicable down here in the chattering dumps. Cas wedges his way through the crowd, looking for a com-stand, but all around him are blaring advertisements, both pictograms and Beta-glyphs. None of the Betas seem bothered, but Castiel's Alpha instincts are on edge. He'd thought the Station was chaotic, but now he understands how carefully controlled the environment was. 

As he makes his way through, elements of the Beta control begin to surface. There's a reason why Betas are allowed the freedom they have. He doesn't see a single fight, even in the melee of too-close bodies that would've made any Alpha break out in rage. The whipping vehicles above move with a strange synchronicity, not unlike the flight formations that took years for Castiel to learn. 

When a loud bell rings across the city, all of the holoscreens shut off, and everyone moves with surprising order into the first open door they find. Carried by the wave, Castiel ends up pressed against the windows of a battery shop and witnesses his first rain. 

The rains come every twelve hours. For fifteen minutes the streets are cleared and the torrent sleets across the City, washing away the grime, filth, and litter. After fifteen minutes, the jets are shut off, the enormous drains at the base of the Sphere empty onto the Earth, and the people come pouring back out of wherever they've hidden. Long ago, when the Earth was still inhabitable, rains came straight from the sky. Natural phenomenon. Pure water, no chlorine or muriatic acid mixed in. It didn't help clean the cities, only created more runoff that led to the seas that only made the planet dirtier. It was all very disorganized. 

Jostled amongst the bodies, Castiel feels something tickle the back of his neck. Jolting, he turns, only to be greeted by a wide-grinning man carrying a rack draped with live plants. Among the headsets still scrolling advertisements, the spiky leaves stand out from their white spheres as something clean. Castiel blinks, shakes his head. It's true. Live, green plants. From the jungles that once covered the Earth. Castiel remembers these from his old studies - the air plants. Parasites, but he always thought they seemed cleaner than the other plants. No need for messy soil, just roots suspended in the sky. Almost like the Sphere, he had thought. Noticing his stare, the vendor throws him a wink.

"Are these legal?" Castiel asks. 

"Straight from my own maker. Fully sterilized." the man shrugs. "Wouldn't be carrying 'em in broad daylight if it wasn't legal, right?" 

Castiel buys six. It's stupid. A waste of his small salary. But they're so fragile, so... green.

Despite the brazen attitude of the vendor, he hides them under his leather trench coat until he reaches his pod. When the rain ends there's a new flood in the streets, all eager to taste the bronze sky. A com-feed kid slaps into Cas, and two of the plants fall to the ground. He rolls over around them, tries to save them from being crushed.

Almost immediately upon entering his pod he tries to throw them in the disintegrator. 

Castiel knows his history. He knows that the planet the City orbits was once covered in green. He also knows his color theory. Green inspires untoward desires. Green ignites the primal sectors of the human mind. Brown is also an unapproved color, but green is... problematic. It inspires thoughts of agriculture, desire for trees and jungle and all of the things the race has worked so hard to defeat. Humans have evolved since those days when only women could get pregnant. Mating was uncontrolled and wild, children ran rampant, and no one knew their place. They got infections and diseases, they scrabbled in the dirt, and they swung through the trees. Like animals. 

In Beta society, color theory isn't as tightly controlled. Betas are the masters of their own minds. To Castiel, the green fronds spark something... wrong. Bad. Not allowed.

Cas tosses one of the plants he dropped on the street into the disintegrator. The second has some wet scrap of holofilm wrapped around it. Through the faint sparks and scratches, he detects a single pictogram. Blue circle.

Omega. 

With careful fingers he pulls the scrap of film from the plant, dabs it dry with a clean shirt, slips it into the slot on his com-tab. The projection is blank, but Cas adjusts his bad eye - well, his good eye - to cast different filters until an array of Beta sigils, pictograms, and holo stills glows across the grid display. The Omega symbol is broken by a single raised fist. That's easy enough to understand. There are scenes of breeding farms, Omegas being dragged down and tranquilized. Drugged out Omegas lying in wait for Alpha impregnation. The pictograms tell stories of shocking pain, enough that Castiel can barely focus, but he forces himself to read. 

Simple propaganda. A series of numbers at the bottom strike him, and he runs them through the military code-breakers on his com-tab. A simple substitution cipher encrypting a time. No date, no location. Could be anytime, anywhere. Rather brazen for an underground movement. Castiel pauses, casts his organic eye out the window. Even the Betas here are bearing hacked-together tech. His own apartment complex is a leaning tower of squalor and poverty. Through the walls he hears racking coughs, crying children, bottles being smashed, and the halls are perfumed with TetraCan.

He's truly been cast down into the Pit, here. 

Maybe the Omegas Underground don't have much to hide. Maybe everyone in the lowest deck of the Sphere is ready for change. 

Shaking himself, Castiel focuses on his task. He has three hours to go, so he turns on the news channel of the holoscreen, falls to the floor, and starts on his pushup routine. Get the endorphins going, get his protein on once he's exhausted and sweating. Just because he isn't at the Station anymore doesn't mean he's gonna let himself slip.


	3. Chapter 3

Fortunately the sunglasses don't affect the filter on his good eye. Castiel walks quickly amongst the crowds, scanning for the Omgas Underground symbol. Red and blue neon lights glare against the steel walls of the Sphere, casting a purple sunset over the City. Clouds of TetraCan drift from windows down onto the streets as the good City-zens find their own moments of peace. He finds the symbol on a sidewalk corner, the fist directing to the left, and follows it. From the underside of a ad-screen to a light post, he follows the fist until he finds himself among a chain of sex-shops and bars. 

Ducking into an alley, Castiel pulls out his good eye and presses a button. Legs emerge from the eye, and the robot raises itself with a tinny creak. Syncing it up with his com-tab, Castiel directs it to the red door with the raised fist. Just in time to hear a group of three Betas utter a pass-code. He's in. 

"Redstocking," he murmurs to the mics at the door, and up it slides. 

He slips into a dark alcove, pushes through a curtain of laser rays.

Beyond a smooth line of a bar gleams with neon yellow lights inlaid under the counter. He goes to the bar first, the better to fortifty himself against the pounding music. The walls are papered with posters - all pictograms, the better for ease of access, but the lights are too dim for him to see clearly. A series of raised fists, blocky shapes, forming an audience for the real show. 

Castiel is trying very hard not to look directly at the stage.

Harder not to look at the Omegas.

Clad in spikes and sequins, neon tubes glittering around their hips. They slide down the poles, crack bawdy jokes, strip off flimsy layers of tinsel and gyrate in a sinuous beat. They slip and slide to the music, and Castiel has to look away when one of them exposes herself. 

And yet - 

This is nothing like his half-remembered glimpses of the breeding farms. This Omega is free, unashamed of her sexuality. She is exposed but no one moves to touch her, grab her, take advantage. He looks at her, at the three Omegas on stage, and sees that they are beautiful. That here they have power. One of them drops into a perfect splits while another soars around the pole, and he involuntarily bares his teeth in a sign of appreciation. Alpha gesture, but no one notices at the dark bar. He looks back to the lime-green glow of his drink. Focuses. 

The dance ends, and the Omega dancers retreat behind a curtain. All but one who slips up to the bar, jumping up on the barstool beside Castiel. He throws the bartender a nod and she slides a brown bottle his way. Reaching under the bar, he pulls a leather studded jacket from a hidden hook and pulls it on over his scraps of sequin. He's big for an Omega, only an inch or two shorter than Cas. Light freckles dust his cheek beneath green eyes, and his smile is bright and open. "Heya," he says, and it takes Castiel a moment to realize the Omega is talking to him. For the first time in his life an Omega is speaking to him. His voice is deep and warm, nothing like Castiel could have ever imagined. "You new around here?"

Castiel swallows his drink in a gulp. "Um. Yes." There's no food on the menu here, but bowls of Gobits dot the bar and he shoves them in his mouth mindlessly. They're Beta-dosed, so he knows they won't keep him up all night, but it's better than nothing.

"Enjoying the show?"

"Yep."

"Cool." Dean throws him a two-fingered salute. "I'm Dean, by the way."

Castiel stares before he remembers himself. "Cas."

"Howdy, Cas," Dean says. His eyes are traveling up and down Castiel's body. Fearless. 

It's not right for Castiel to be so terrified of an Omega, but it seems a lot of things aren't right in the City. He meets Dean's eyes. Makes sure his good hand is hidden under the table. "It's... good to meet you."

"Better be." Dean waggles his eyebrows, rolls around on his chair so he's facing the stage. More Omegas are coming out on stage - one of them might even be a Beta - but Dean pulls a small com-tab from somewhere. It's nothing like Castiel's military hardware - encased in cracked plastic, the screen slow. He brings up a screen of Beta sigils, fingers flying. Absorbed in whatever he's doing, he doesn't seem to notice Castiel's furtive glances.

Dean can read. 

Not even Alpha sergeants are permitted to know the Beta language. 

As more people enter the bar, the smell of Omega and Beta blends together into a single earthy musk. Dean is moving amongst the crowd, obviously well-known and liked. Sometimes he throws Cas a wary glance, shushes whoever he's speaking to. Cas may have said the password, but he's still new. There's a few other outsiders on the edge of the circles. Cas doesn't know what to do but watch. His eye is recording everything, at least, so he tries to look around as much as possible. The bartender pours him another drink, something for his hands to do.

Dean is passing by him again, smiling. Sinking back down on the stool. "Bit of a shock for you, buddy?"

Glad for his sunglasses to hide his widening eyes, Cas swallows. "A little. But... it's good."

"Course it is." Dean is looking him up and down again, head slanted toward Castiel. His sniff is nearly inaudible, but Castiel picks up on it. The Omega is scenting him. For a moment he thinks it's all about to blow up in his face, but Dean just leans away again, a blush rising on his cheeks. "Sorry, you just... smell kinda nervous."

Behind the scent blockers, Castiel has always known he never smelled quite right for an Alpha. Just another defect in his makeup. He wonders what exactly Dean smells from him. "I guess. I've never seen anything like this."

"You're not from around here," Dean observes. "Let me guess. Meatgarden district?"

The people down here must have their own terms for the segments of the city. The north-eastern arc of the City is where the abandoned cloning factories still stand. Down here is where the brood-farm factories operate, but he can understand how the people might look at the old factories and make a joke out of the early attempts at growing human meat. "Yeah," Castiel says softly. 

"Welcome to the Oven," Dean grins, clapping Castiel on the shoulder.

"The Oven?"

"Bout everyone's got a bun in the oven round here, Cas."

"Do you?"

"No." A look passes over Dean's face, but it's gone before Cas can place it. He'll have to look over the still from the recording later. Dean slaps his belly. "Came off the line with a few crossed wires. I'm defective. Lucky me, right?"

"Lucky you," Cas agrees. Somehow he's genuinely relieved to know that the man before him has never been to the brood-farms. Dean is lucky he isn't dead, in fact. Not that Dean seems to believe in his luck. When Cas looks around the room he sees a few swelling bellies, the haunted look in their eyes. They say the Omegas are so drugged up they don't know what's happening to them - for both implantation and birthing. In the nine months between, though, they carry the reminder. In the birthing labs, the brood line is only a few doors away. 

The first time - when Cas broke away from the brood-line, weak-legged and feverish in his rut, he'd seen them. Rows of Omegas with robotic hands between their legs. Umbilical cords snapped, leaking fluid, and the wailing infants still reaching for their Omega as they were tested for Alpha, Beta, or Omega, and then dropped down their respective lines. It shouldn't have made him sick. It was the circle of life.

Chuck had found him, curled by the window looking down at the factory floor.

Cas remembered nothing after that. The memory reels on his eye are cut with static, fizzle out into nothing.

"Cas?"

Dean''s voice pulls him out of it. Blinking, Cas decides to shut off his eye for the rest of the night. His superiors should understand - after all, if he shows them tonight's reels they'll see his flashbacks as well. Maybe he won't upload these reels. Apologizing to Dean, he picks up his drink.

"It's cool," Dean says. "I was just saying, it's kind of loud in here."

"It is."

"You wanna-?" Pulling a small tube from within his jacket, Dean twiddles it between his fingers. Cas sniffs, but it's only nACHR, not TetraCan. Nothing that would impair him too badly. He nods, and follows Dean to the back of the bar. Dean presses a button and a gate lights up in the wall, slides out to reveal an alley. At this time the skies of the Sphere are tinted dark, nearly black, but here running lines of pink light outline the alley. Disintegrators belch, their bellies glowing with nuclear heat, and somewhere a copter drones. They pass the nACHR back and forth, sweet vapor lightening Castiel's head, driving him to flex his fingers and enjoy the flow of blood. 

"So tell me," Dean asks, leaning against the wall of the bar. "What brings you to this place?" He's avoiding the term Omegas Underground, Castiel notes.

It's a lie. It's supposed to be a lie. But for a moment, Castiel forgets he's supposed to be a double agent. He swallows a thousand words he could say, tightens his coat around him. His good hand is a bulky machine in his pocket. "I've seen the brood-farms," he says softly. "Call it... empathy."

Dean nods, stubs at the ground. His boots are heavy, carbon-fiber in the toes. "We. Uh, we sent some bots in. To take photos."

"I... I was employed there. As a cleaner."

"Jesus." Dean wipes his face with the back of his hand. "Wait a minute. I thought only elite Betas worked there. Are you... shit, you're from Up?" Dean narrows his eyes. "Why'd you lie?"

"I didn't want to bring it up," Cas snaps. "What difference does it make? And for your information, I did indeed live in the Meatgarden for a time."

"Alright, alright." Dean holds up his hands in a placating gesture. Omega submissiveness looks good on him, Castiel notes for a moment, but just the fleeting thought fills him with revulsion. When he's acting as an Alpha he thinks like a Beta, and when he's acting Beta he thinks Alpha. What a fucking mess he is. "You got to admit, it's a little suspicious. Seeing a Beta from on Up down here in the City not on official business."

"I'm a defective elite," Cas says wryly. "That's why they made me a janitor." 

"But you got out. And never went home?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"No." Cas shakes his head. "You don't - you're an Omega. If anything, the world owes you apology."

"Just saying," Dean says. "You know - this is kind of sudden. But if you want to join our cause... I'd like to interview you about it sometime. You could write us one hell of an article. That is, whenever you're ready to talk about it. If you ever want to."

"I don't." A cloud of nACHR drifts behind the lenses of Castiel's shades, stinging his bad eye. 

Dean is silent for a long time, one hand running down the pink neon tube of the door. "I can respect that," he says finally, and goes back inside the door.

He's left his nACHR tube with Castiel. But when he turns back inside, the bar is empty. All save the bartender, innocently running her vac-bot along the bar counter. The curtain behind the stage is still swinging. Cas looks at the curtain, back at the bartender. He sits down and orders another drink. 

 

 

On the other end of the com Naomi seems distracted. Her fingers are passing through screens Castiel cannot see.

"The reels were damaged," Cas tells Naomi. "I didn't find much - I found their meeting place, but the inner sanctum still eludes me." He doesn't name Dean. 

"Good," Naomi muses. "You can send me your reports through pics next time. I'm giving you limited access to our servers. The username and password will be hard-coded on your com-tab, so there's no need for you to learn them. But you can upload your reels and view any of our relevant data on the City Omegas."

An unprecedented amount of trust is being placed in Castiel, but he has a feeling he won't be finding much more information than he could find at the Station public access com. "Thank you," he says, but Naomi's already ending the connection. With a sigh, Castiel lies back on his cot. From here he can see the fronds of the air plants peek over their shelf. With his good eye and his good hand removed, he can sink into sleep. 

In his dreams - 

_green._

It's strange, how the airplants seem to sprout from Dean's orbital sockets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, nicotine is a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist. nACHR. TetraCan = tetrahydrocannabinol aka THC that was easy enough i hope.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops i thought i had posted this with the first three but it was still in my drafts.
> 
> Anyways. I don't want to get into too much detail here, but, uh. [This is a high quality image reference](https://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9c7oyii9L1r28k5co1_540.jpg) for what Castiel's 'good' hand looks like. 
> 
>  
> 
> [Tagged for PTSD. Sorry.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo6Cu4nBiIo)

As the days go by Cas is nervous about going back to the bar. Something passed between him and Dean that night - or maybe that's just the Alpha talking. Not even that - the whole culture shock of the city is getting to his head. There are pregnant Omegas on the streets with empty souls in their eyes. There's the soft footsteps of Betas ringing in his ears. There's a teen fresh from the Nursery working the counter at a convo who looks so much like Castiel he could have sprung from a time capsule. His scent says he a fifteen year old Omega and his nametag reads Steve. Cas leaves his tabwipes at the counter and goes home to take his Alpha sedatives. Naomi warned him about many things, but the potentiality that Castiel could meet one of his own children had slipped both their minds. The rains come and go and leave the City bedraggled but clean. Sometimes Castiel sits on his balcony and takes deep sniffs of the chemicals. Sometimes he skips one of his thrice-daily workouts in favor of lying on his cot and trying not to think too much. 

The stripclub is just one of many Omega Underground hangouts. There's a CF club that sells the drug in the old style, brewed into a dark beverage, and the back counter is littered with the Omega's Underground holofilms. He notes a new article by Dean, an interview with a former drug manufacturer. In the past three years, the amount of Ethoxy administered to Omegas has doubled. Levels of Sery-NL for Alphas is still undisclosed, sadly. A bright holoscreen advertises a concert where he stands awkwardly among thrashing teenage Omegas dressed in too many steel spikes. At the end, the lead thereminist smashes blue neon tubes across the stage. Castiel takes a twelve-minute reel of a protest, Omegas and Betas alike marching down the street bearing holoscreens and speakerphones. Everyone is painted pink, lavender, baby blue, the colors softened and blurred together and waving on rainbow banners. The protest dissolves into a parade, then a street party, and Cas gets caught up in the whirlwind. Someone gives him a white liquid drink that loosens his limbs and he's spinning into them all, laughing when he nearly falls over. His ass gets slapped by an Beta doused in so much Omega perfume he could swear she's pure Omega. She blows a kiss and the Omega scent clings to his skin, follows his swaying path through the crowd. His eye is getting amazing footage. That'll be his excuse. 

The wild energy doesn't last long, but it still feels like a victory. The copters spray tear gas first, then comes the rain. Four hours early. When that fails to clean the streets, the great jets at the top of the Sphere are simply turned up to eleven. Castiel ducks beneath an awning, holding a ragged comsweeps over his head. His laughter stops, though, when he realizes something doesn't smell right about this rain.

Looking around first to make sure no one spots him, Castiel holds out his good hand. It's hidden beneath the hang of his leather trenchcoat, but the streets are nearly empty by now. A small pad activates on the middle finger, catches a drop of the water. Focusing on his nervous system, Cas sends a direct signal to that finger. Operating the finer details of his hand with his brain doesn't come as easily as his eye, but the chemical analysis pops up quickly in a neon glow across his visual cortex. 

The concentration of fluoride in the rain is triple normal levels. 

His eye records and saves the information on a separate reel. He takes pictures - blurry through the raindrops on his sunglasses, but they'll do. Cas knows his history. He's been to the corners of the Station's pictogram library, cracked the screens of tabs that hadn't been activated in decades. The fluoride in the water system played a crucial role in the early attempts at societal control. The archaic practice was even used at the Station; whenever an Alpha got too speculative, there were the fluoride injections. Cas has had more than a few needles shoved in his veins. Even when the rains stop, the fumes will still rise from the streets, perfuming the air of the City. Perhaps some of the drugs Intelligence gave him will counteract it. The drone copters are sweeping in the canyons of the Oven, and Cas ducks back beneath the awning to watch.

There's a man in a studded leather jacket aiming a rusty-looking comtab at a drone copter. He's got some archaic device of metal and fabric wedged in his elbow, rising above and shielding him from the rain. 

Dean. 

Just as quickly Dean darts into a storefront. The device snaps shut just before he vanishes behind the door. 

Violent prods of water spear into Castiel when he tries to run across the street. He slips, stumbles. Forces himself back up, barely suppressing his growl. Even though his leather trench coat there'll be bruises, but no matter. Castiel may be defective, but he's still a god damn Alpha. It'll take more than strong shower to hurt him. He makes it to the door, slams inside and sprays drops all over the crowd. He can't see Dean, but they're all staring at him. A small circle has formed around him, and suddenly Cas wonders if his blockers are working. 

No, he's fine. To them he's just a crazy man who sprinted across the street in that deluge. Cas quells his adrenalin, forces himself calm. Deep breaths. Eyes wide open but focusing on nothing, his good eye shut down. If anyone smells his Alpha hormones, he's fucked. Isolation at the Station, if not killed outright. Betas and Omegas may be allowed to mix, but even for special events in the Courts no Alphas were present without heavy restraints, an armed guard, and sometimes a healthy dose of nerve damage. Shit, but he could use a good shot of Cu-RAR right now. Mumbling apologies, Cas even flashes a few sheepish smiles. 

Everyone must know he came running in after Dean. One Beta throws him a jerk of the head towards the back of the small grocery. Cas shoves past racks of comsweeps and RutGo and crinkly sacks of Gobits to find Dean standing with three Beta. One is half a head taller than Castiel, but Castiel forces himself not to cringe. They're all fussing over the com-tab, probably over the drone-copter photos.

Clearing his throat, Cas holds out the nACHR tube in his bad hand. "You forgot this." All four eyes are on him. Scenting him. The problem with his bad hand is that it's still flesh and blood and bone. Cas can't control the trembling. Then Dean breaks into a soft smile, slips the tube from his fingers. He thanks Cas dismissively, as if he's trying to turn back to his friends. Maybe Cas could pull off his sunglasses and distend his good eye. Pull out his com-tab and show Dean everything. But already he's getting odd looks, the scent of discomfort. "I've got pictures of the brood-farms," Cas says out of desperation. "I can show you. I'm ready to give you that interview, Dean."

Dean glances between the Betas, exchanging looks. The tall one raises a brow, the shorter ones alternately squint and widen their eyes, but then Dean is grinning and tells him to come to the strip club tomorrow night, just after the evening rains.

 

"I have an in," Castiel tells Naomi. "One of the journalists wishes to interview me."

"Good. The things you've uploaded so far haven't exactly been helpful."

"Gaining trust takes time."

Naomi quirks one perfect brow. "You are correct. What is that noise?"

"Um - " Cas glances at the wall of his pod. The banging and moans are unmistakeable. "I believe my neighbors are... ah. Engaging. Sexually."

"Low-level Betas," Naomi muses. "Confusing, isn't it? But don't let them make you uncomfortable. In the lower classes it's a harmless recreational activity. Up here we engage in the scientific pursuits, while they are devoted to the... artistic. In fact, studies have shown that it even serves as an excellent distraction."

"Distraction from what?"

"The fact that they'll never be elites." There's a smug smile tickling the corners of Naomi's mouth, and Cas wants to reach through the screen and slap it off her face. "Now what exactly will they be interviewing you about?" 

"I told them I was a janitor in the brood-farms. They have questions about the drugs used on Omegas. I'll make something up. The entire conversation will be recorded."

"Don't worry about saying too much. We need them to trust you and believe you, Castiel. We need you to keep tabs on their innermost circles. We're fighting constant battles against their hackers - there's no telling what they do or do not already know. If there's something you can say that will gain their trust, say it. Be useful to them. And check your inbox before you leave. I've sent you data on the two agents we've already lost. Good-bye, Castiel."

"Wait!" 

Naomi frowns, but leaves her com running. "Yes?"

"I'm having some, ah, issues."

"What?"

"My sedatives."

"Are the Alpha sedatives we gave you not enough?" 

"No. I - I used to take other things. Specific things. The Commander gave me doses of lorazepam and dramamine. To help me sleep."

"Special treatment for you?"

"I'm defective," Castiel says plainly. "I kept the other Alphas awake at night with my screaming."

"I'll check with the Commander, but I can't make any promises yet. We'll let you know. Now, goodbye." 

The com blinks, vanishes. Castiel sighs and lets his head fall on the desk. He hasn't had the nightmares in a while, but he has a feeling talking about the brood-farms will stir up something. Maybe he can just tell the Omegas about the extra fluoride in the water. There's the chemical analysis, but then he'd have to explain how he got it. 

Under the bright fluorescents in his pod kitchen, Cas eats three bison-elk steaks, two packages of Gobits, and does pushups until his back rebels and he hopes there's enough adrenalin rattling in his system to get him through it. Of course he won't show Dean the full reels. Just stills. Let his imagination fill in the blanks. Besides, if he was just a janitor, there'd be no good reason for him to be carrying around a constant recorder. Cas inserts his good eye back in and runs the reels through his visual cortex until he finds the three he wants. 

Three times they tried to make him breed, and three times Castiel broke through his restraints. There's still a scar on his bad wrist from the cuffs.

From the first frame of the first reel it's a disaster. The memories rattle his skull and it isn't even just the reels. Its the smell of the chemicals in his nostrils, the nausea, the pounding in his ears, the unending litany of _nonononono not this not this anything but this-_

The food unit is a mess of sparking wires and crushed metal on on the other side of the room. Scratches on the clean surface of his good fist. That must have been him who smashed it, but that's impossible since Cas is busy curling into a ball and shaking, shaking, his teeth are grinding together and he should work out or hit the nACHR or anything, anything. Oblivion. If he was back at the Station - but he isn't, and there's no doctors with ready needles to turn him back into the Alpha he should be.

He's moving but he can't feel his body. He's speaking but he can't hear his words. Cas drifts through the halls of the pod complex and then he's got a long silver tube and a bottle of TetraCan and now he's back in the dark safety of his pod.

The microdot with the stills is on the table. Good, good. He managed to save the file and print it out even in the throes of... well, _that_. Not so dysfunctional yet, then. 

The TetraCan slips easily into his bloodstream.

Cas stretches out on the floor. He rolls over and fall's back into his body. A heady buzz slides over him like a second skin. His trenchcoat is thrown off, eye and hand removed, and then his tee shirt and his pants and shoes are off too and he's naked on the floor. The vacbot bumps into him curiously and suddenly he's laughing.

He almost misses his appointment. Still a little lax, still smiling a but too much, but its fine. He's got the microdot and he's gonna go see Dean again.

Its okay if he talks about it. He's going to be lying anyways.

Because Cas isn't going to join Omegas Underground. There's nothing here for him beyond the job, and a return to life at the Station once his task is complete. He brings up the latest upload from Naomi, information on the Beta defectors. Charlie Bradbury was a noted Elite who worked for Propaganda before Intelligence scouted her for her backdoor hacking abilities. Kevin Tran, another Elite. Whiz kid, pulled out of Foundation training to work for Defense as a translator of alien transmissions. He pulls up the images one last time.

The com-tab falls to the floor, thankfully without shattering. 

Kevin and Charlie. He's seen them. 

At the shop with Dean Winchester. There's not a doubt in his mind now. He's found the leader of the Omegas Underground. A plan begins to formulate in his head - Dean's an Omega, defective or not. Once Castiel gains his trust, he'll be easy to control. In the earliest days of the Sphere, Omegas naturally submitted to Alphas. The relationships formed were chaotic, and reproduction spiralled out of control, but Castiel is a modern Alpha. A soldier of the Sphere and loyal to the Beta Foundation. Now Castiel sees how his defects give him power here - he'll be able to resist Dean without a problem.

He picks his comtab from the floor, tracing the screen with his thumb. Ignores the rebellious voice that wishes it _had_ shattered. That must be the TetraCan speaking. It has to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [i have listened to more rants about the flouride conspiracy than i know](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy)  
>   
> 
> the next chapter has some awfully cheesy FUTURISTIC slang girdle your loins or whatever


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the dragons. By which I mean Charlie and Kevin #theyneverdied

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> most of the Lingo here is random, cutoff swears from Korean, Finnish, some other stuff. It doesn't matter and is obvious. meme-speak and general slang.  
> whatever! Kevin is the New Youth; he's an Edgy Teen 
> 
> It wouldn't make sense for Sam and Dean to be brothers in this universe.  
> Also this might be unnecessary to add but I'm using the word 'intranet' because that refers to a closed internal network generally owned by a corporation, that wasn't a typo.

 

Red hulking figures raise their fists, crushing the same alien ships Castiel remembers from the training sims. PROTECT. PRODUCE. PROVIDE. There's a squiggle of Beta sigils along with the pictograms. As he stares the hologram shimmers and shifts into an advertisement, but the blocky shapes of the Alphas still stain his retinas. No one down here has any idea what an Alpha looks like, but he supposed those snarling beasts are accurate enough. The grid winks again and changes. Castiel looks to Dean, leaning against the ad-projector with his hands in his pockets.

"You ready?" They climb a short ladder to one of the many catwalks criss-crossing the canyons of the City. A massive black auto is docked, jets still smoking. "Meet my baby," Dean grins, slapping the hood. "She's old, but she's a real beast."

"She's very nice," Castiel says carefully. The zipping autos and catwalks are just another piece of the scenery for Castiel, but Dean seems to have significant attachment to this one. Curiously enough he's even assigned it a gender. The seats are slick leather, and it smells strongly of Dean. His foot catches on something and Cas finds a squashed tube of O-Slick.

Blushing, Dean grabs it from him and stashes it in his pocket. "S'mine."

"You can't make your own?"

"Nope. But that never stopped a Beta, eh?" His grin is wide, lewd, then disappears. "Sorry. I forget you elites don't get up to what we do down here."

"I'm not offended," Cas shrugs. "I see ads for that every day. But the purpose of non-procreative sex eludes me."

"Man, see, this is what people forget. Sex used to be fun for humans. Orgasms, ya feel me?"

"The planet was also grossly overpopulated to the point of environmental collapse."

"True. But that doesn't mean we had to gank the process entirely. What happened to orgasms, right? Well. I guess you've never -"

"No."

"Eh. Stick around down here enough, you might end up giving it a try." Dean throws a wink, turns a dial, and the auto revs up and soars. "Oh, and uh, put this on." He tosses a thick, black bandanna at Castiel. "Round the eyes. There we go. No offense, but you are new."

"I can respect that." Cas ties on the blindfold, and then sits back and listens to the rumble of the jets.

After twenty minutes of swerving, Dean leads him out on a catwalk, down a series of steps. A very long series of steps, until the air grows warmer and they must be inside somewhere. A beaded curtain slips against his coat, and then Dean is untying the blindfold. Light floods his eyes and he blinks, squints at the window. Air plants are clustered all along the sill.

There's too many eyes looking at him. Too many pregnant bellies. Steeling himself, Cas focuses on everything that isn't people. The walls are plastered in multicolored grids. A holofilm printer is disemboweled on the floor, one Omega performing surgery with a screwdriver with a nACHR tube dangling from their lips. Another functioning printer is humming, squashed in between rusting foodunits. There's piles of diskdrives scattered on various tables, and a disassembled drone copter taking up space on a couch.

"Everybody, meet Cas." Dean's hand clamps down on Castiel's shoulder. "Cas, this is everybody."

Six Omegas. Three Betas. A few raise wary hands in a salute. The blockers Castiel is wearing are top of the line, but he's still spooked to the core. At least the clouds of TetraCan and nACHR only help his cause.

"This your interview?" The surgeon Omega points the screwdriver at Castiel. "You finna do that right here?"

"Not _right_ here," Dean scowls. "C'mon, Cas." The hand on Castiel's shoulder steers him through the room, side-swiping slick leather and studded jackets, through a kitchen with a steaming CF machine, and then a door slips up and a set of steel stairs descend into blackness. "Long way down," Dean says, and he's not wrong. There's so many steel steps Castiel thinks they must be near the drains by now. Occasionally the darkness is broken with the neon glow of belching incinerators. Finally there's a long catwalk with a curtain of red lasers at the end, and they pass through into a room that must be immense.

Not that there's a square foot of empty space.

The looping wires and cables trigger a sense of longing for the orderly tech of the Station. Some of these connections are sealed with duct tape. A massive holoscreen dangles nonchalantly from a thread, and Cas cringes at the thought of it snapping and crashing. There's a nest of screens juxtaposed with cables and it's definitely a fire hazard. If a fight broke out this whole place would fall into shambles. But Dean dodges cables and waves screens away like second nature until they've reached a clearing, of sorts. A few sofas clustered with hard drives surrounding the biggest holofilm press Castiel has ever seen. Unlike everything else it's gleaming and polished, scanners whipping in its depths. A clear product of the Court's Information sector. Bradbury, Castiel remembers. He wonders how the hell Charlie managed to get one of these all the way down here.

"Yo!" Dean hollers into the jungle of cables and a head rises from the mess.

Well, there must be a head. That projector unit and all those sig-sticks must be attached to something. "Check 'em!" A hand encased in tech appears, and then the kid vaults over a monitor. His progress is halted by a straining. "Crike, get this out the bub," he mutters, tugging at the offending wire. "Depower. Okay."

Cas tries to make sense, but there's something wrong in the feedback between his brain and his ears. He looks at Dean for guidance but Dean is just shaking his head. "Kids these days. Can barely unnerstand them. Kev, hows the old printing press?"

"Guten 95 is spinning, Ome-slice."

"Speak like a god damn human," Dean grouses, but the kid just laughs.

"Come on and evolve, ukki. Just wait till I get the network up. The evolution of com as we know it is about to pop off."

"Kevin here thinks he can establish communication with the other Spheres." Dean rolls his eyes, but there's a secret pride there.

The kid takes off his g-cams and projectors and sig-sticks to reveal the face from the file. He's practically bouncing on his feet. "I don't think, man, I know." He gives Castiel a conspiratorial look. "This closed intranet gom is so 2020. We've already b-ded the sax out of the B-squad's systems. Not the whole Sphere - but once we get the Alfie's, we're gonna cee-em-dee this puta. And tomorrow, the galaxy."

Cocking his head to the side, Castiel regards the strange Beta. "Translation?"

"Nope."

"Where the hell is Charlie, anyways? She speaks god damn Sphere," says Dean.

"Up there." Kevin points up into the nest of wires. "Don't hack her. She's onto something with the Alfies."

Castiel peers up into a soft blue glow. There's someone up there, he realizes, suspended in a nest of wires. Seated before six monitors, cables coming out of her ears, red hair styled up at the top of her head to make way for the gear she's got on. The other renegade Elite is lost to the world of virtual reality. "What is she doing?" Castiel wonders aloud.

"She's innit."

"In what?"

"Uh, the intranet?"

Cas blinks. Cocks his head, squints at the headpiece she's got wearing. "She's... _inside_ the intranet?"

"Yep. And she won't be coming out for a minute. So. You're the new B-squad, right? What's your last name?"

Castiel scans his memory. Elites are grouped by their schools - the significance eludes him, but it can't matter that much - so he latches onto Naomi's name. "Waters. Castiel Waters."

"Waters! Redline sax, baby. No wonder they wanted to get rid of you." Chewing his lip, Kevin suddenly frowns. "So, uh.... what... how the hell does a Waters end up defective, anyways? Like, what's wrong with you?"

"Kevin!" Dean lunges, but Castiel throws out a restraining arm and he rocks back on his heels. At least it's too dark in here for them to see his blush. Castiel is delusional if he thinks there's any kind of chemistry, but the subtle display of control and submission triggers something biochemical. It's just the fact that Dean is an Omega and he's an Alpha. Natural reactions.

"It's fine, Dean. I'm not offended." Everything is wrong with Castiel. "I'm given to strong displays of emotion without logical processing. And I have a... learning disability."

"I didn't mean anything was wrong with you," Kevin says hurriedly. "I meant, like, Beta society. But from the perspective of Beta society, that's - quote unquote - wrong. You vibe me?"

"I... vibe you."

"Exactly!" Kevin slaps Castiel on the shoulder. "See, that's what language is, man. Vibes. Just wait till we start communicating with the other Spheres, B-squad. We're gonna be offending each other all over the place and you know what? We're just gonna have to vibe it out. We're gonna learn so much."

"We have no idea how language might have evolved in the other Spheres."

"Exactly! That's what's gonna be so fun about it. Man, the future is gonna be tubular."

"Let's get this show on the road," Dean butts in. "Where's Sam at?"

"Transcribing," Kevin says, rolling his eyes. "You know how he gets. Blah blah, data is fragile, physical copies can't be hacked."

"Fucking nerd. Alright. Let's get this show on the road."

Castiel is seated on a small metal chair. His knees bump the underside of a flip-down table that springs from seemingly nowhere. A small projector jets up from the middle of the table, and Kevin widens the display with a flick of the fingers. The pink grid is sunset red through Castiel's shades. He places the microdot in the drive and the images appear in full color, hovering across the grid.

"Whoa, whoa," Dean says. He's leaning over Castiel's shoulder, words tickling Castiel's ear. "Those are the birthing chambers?"

The bot arms yank, snip, drop. Yank, snip, drop, as the five-second image loops endlessly. "Yes." Castiel focuses only on his own breath. As he speaks a speech-to-pic screen crops up and while it's Beta language, he finds himself speaker slower, watching each strange squiggle appear. "You can see each chute is coded for Betas, Omegas, and Alphas."

"Are they injecting them with something?"

"I don't know exactly what. It seems to be a mild sedative. In the next image, you can see the babies stop crying. Once down the chutes, they head to the Academy, the Nursery, and the Farm, respectively. Over here are the control screens, but-"

"Zoom in on that," Kevin says. "I wanna see those arms." Taking hold of the image, Castiel focuses on the arms. A baby opens its mouth in a soundless squeal. "I don't get it. How do they know which one to pick?"

"I don't know. Nobody is allowed inside the birthing chambers. I only came into clean the bodily fluids once it was empty."

"What about the Omegas? What if something happens?" Dean asks.

Castiel shivers. He saw that. He knows he did. But he didn't bring the image. "They were... terminated. I didn't - I didn't want to bring you anything too. Uh. Graphic."

"That's what gets viewers, man. I know it's ugly, but that's the kind of shit we need to see. Whatever."

"I said," Cas snaps, "that I cleaned up fluids. HCL 97-1. Imagine a popsicle in a circuit-box." On the table, his bad hand is shaking and he forces it back down, clenches it in his good hand until it hurts.

Kevin and Dean are exchanging significant looks. Of course they must have already known. Every Omega is rounded up and drugged down once a year and some of them don't come back. Castiel bites his lip, a new awareness of the hell that is being Omega dawning.

The images pause. A hand lands on Castiel's shoulder, gripping too tight. "Cas. Look. Maybe it was hard for you. Maybe it stirs up some bad memories. But dammit, the people need the truth. Every comfeed and sweeps is saying the same crap. Everywhere you look it's buy this, watch this, work hard, don't look, don't think. Take your drugs. Lie down and take what we give you and don't ever, ever, use your own fucking head.

We don't do that here. I'm not here to make you feel better, I'm here to slap you in the fucking face with what's really going on. I get out of bed every god damn morning to tell the truth, Cas, and if you're not willing to give it to me then this isn't for you.

Nobody cares if you're broken, Cas. There's hundreds of Omegas out there who got a way rawer deal than working as a fucking janitor."

This Omega has sass, no doubt. Castiel's lip curls involuntarily as he stares down this stupid, uppity, arrogant Omega. "What would you know about that, _Defective_?" Dean is opening his mouth to reply but it's too late. Already the scenes are running through his head, the long lines of Alphas queuing up for their Rutgo, the silver needle descending, and then -

Then.

Then there's a sweet, musky scent. Then there's sweaty fabric under Castiel's face, his tears soaking the shirt.

Oh.

He's crying.

His sunglasses are rucked up his face, messing his hair, and Dean's hands are careful on his shoulders. Dean says his name thickly, like he swallowed pure foodgel straight from the maker unit. Shit. The glasses. Maybe if he moves fast enough Castiel can lower them quickly enough and extricate himself from this embarrassing situation without giving himself away. Then again, he realizes, his eye is an example of the finest tech in the Sphere. Custom designed to match his own eye. To a casual observer... Its just his eye. Even the tear ducts still function, as Dean is already aware. The housing in his socket is only visible if he pulls at his eyelids. To Castiel it's the most obvious thing on his body. To everyone else, it's just an eye. Tilting his neck, he looks back at Dean. His sunglasses are still askew and he must look ridiculous, but Dean's eyes are even greener without his shades on and Cas can't help but stare.

They're so close he can taste Deans breath. Hear when it hitches.

Dean has been staring into his eyes for so long now he _must_ be able to tell the good eye from the bad.

In an unconscious move Dean's neck tilts back. an extra inch of skin emerging from beneath his shirt. There's sweat in the dip between his collarbones. Cas nearly faints again when he realizes Dean is letting him scent him. As if Cas hasn't already just buried himself in the guy's neck. It's such a simple gesture but it's all wrong. An Omega should never offer this symbol of sanctuary to an Alpha. There's redness around Dean's eyes, he's biting his lip, but his scent is pure comfort. Maybe this is how it was back in the day. A sweet calm washes over Castiel, soothing his raging pheremones. His shoulders fall limp. Utter peace. A singular heartbeat echoes in his ears, in such perfect time with his own they might as well be the same. Stiffening, Cas opens his eyes and refuses to meet Dean's own. This is it. This is why the Alphas and Omegas had to be separated. Naomi and Chuck were wrong about Castiel.

A monitor goes crashing to the floor. Dean trips over a cable when he stomps away and he shouts, fights it, rips out the cable with a shower of sparks. Somewhere a door slams, and the room is bereft of Dean's scent. Blinking, Cas snaps out of the scene. Looks back at the display. During his breakdown the speech-to-text screen widened, now displaying a repetitive pattern of two letters. Only two.

That angular thing must make the 'nnn' sound, and the circle the 'oh'.

"Okay," Kevin says. "So. That went well."

"We can reschedule the interview."

"It's cool. Just - unless you have somewhere to be - look, B-squad. Dean isn't - he wasn't trying to downgrade your trauma, you know? It's just weird for him. He's an Omega, but... nevermind, this isn't mine to tell."

"He told me he's never been to the broodfarms."

"Kinda fucked up, right?"

"Fucked up? He's extremely lucky."

"Yeah, but he's an Omega. Who's never. been. to the broodfarms. Every Omega shares this experience but him. Even though he's fighting for them, sometimes he wonders if it's even his battle. Like maybe he's just appropriating their trauma to make himself feel better? i don't know. He's a real dumbass if you ask me, but, fuck. I'm a Beta. I got no clue; I just gotta try to be a good ally.

But you're right. The Omegas don't need to see that graphic shit. Maybe future generations, but right now? Too much.

On the other hand. You know, we've lost, like, two members here? Katja was one of our photographers. She made the drone that got destroyed in the brood-farm. Jimmy kind of just lived here. He kept the place clean, fed the hack squad, kept shit organized. We all loved them both. And they went to the brood-farms and they never came home." Kevin's gaze is locked onto the grid display. He's dropped the slang, Cas notes. A true Beta, seeing both sides of the coin. "I don't know your whole story. But if you give me your data. I'll go over it. Fuck the interview. You don't need to relive that shit." The same image is replaying over and over again. On a separate screen, Kevin seems to be taking notes. "Not without some good drugs, at least," he mutters.

Cas tilts his head at the grid. "What are you writing?"

"Can't you read?" At Castiel's silence, Kevin turns apologetic. "Sorry. Forgot. Um, I'm trying to find some kind of pattern here in the division of the genders. But it all seems so... random."

"Perhaps it is random."

"Please. In the Sphere, nothing is random. I mean, haven't you ever wondered? What makes us all different? Besides the obvious, but like, why? You know? Omegas birth Alphas and Omegas and Betas alike. Supposedly we're all born the way we are, but look at these babies. Do you see anything obvious?"

"They're newborns."

"They've got genitalia, don't they?" Kevin peers through the neon grid at Castiel. "If you can get me the rest of your reels, that'd be doublesupes."

Sure, Cas can do that. Once he gets his proper sedatives, maybe. There's a clatter from the direction Dean disappeared. It's the tall man, rubbing his eyes. His hair is tied back in a loose bun, and sigils still roll past on his eyescreen. With a groan he tosses the screen onto the table, glances between the two seated before the grid.

"Sam!" Kevin chirps. "You missed the party."

"Must've been one hell of a party. Wanna explain why Dean's trying to drink himself stupid back there?"

"Only Dean knows the truth," Kevin intones. "Check it. This guy has insider footage of the brood-farms."

"Sick. Where's Charlie? Still in the Zone?" From a nest of wires Sam finds a chair, scrapes it over the table and takes a seat. When he sets one heavy foot on top it jiggles, blurring the holograms for a moment. "So you must be Cas, then. Fuck did you do to him?"

"In the most clinical of terms, I had a panic attack."

Sam squints at him. "Yep. Sounds like a real party."

"Is Dean okay?"

"He will be." Sam shrugs.

"I should leave. I'll go get you the rest of the reels. Keep the microdot."

He's halfway up the steps when he remembers Dean drove him here blindfolded. Running down the steps, he shoves through the curtain and nearly collides with Charlie Bradbury. Out of the Zone and into the flesh. There's still a sweeps-radio strapped around her head, and Castiel notes the g-dots on her left arm, the wires snaking up underneath the sleeve of her green T-shirt. Behind her Sam and Kevin are deep in geekspeak but she's just watching him with a thin smile on her lips.

"You need a lift?" She holds Castiel by the elbow, steering him up the stairs, and Castiel lets her take charge. "Not that way," she says suddenly, and when she presses some hidden button a new catwalk alights. A separate entrance. Baffled, Castiel follows her, but it only leads outside near the wall of Sphere. He can see now they're overlooking the drainage canals, where the rain runoff is directed towards the drains. So, close to the bottom, but not quite. There's a spindly catwalk out here, and a bright yellow auto hovering. Charlie produces a flexible strand of rubber, the emptied housing for some sort of cable, and ties it around his eyes. "Nice eye."

"What?"

"Your eye, Cas." She presses on the rubber, and the metal housing shifts under his touch. "Cas Waters, right. Tell me about the rains." Before Castiel can even think up a reply, she's laughing. "You're a terrible liar." A hand tugs at the sleeve of Castiel's coat, revealing his hand, but he's too frozen to move. Castiel can't see it now, but he knows there's a square block covered in Beta sigils on the white housing of his wrist. " 'Property of the Alpha Station," she reads. "Sphere 26-C. If found, please report to your nearest drone-copter.' "

Castiel sees _red._ Blockers be damned, he's sweating under his coat, but Charlie doesn't even seem to notice. "I don't know what you're talking about," he grits.

"Shh. Listen. Just get in the car. I know a refugee when I see one, okay? But you gotta tell me how you got out."

"Wh- what?" If anything, Charlie should be trying to kill him. There is a small plasma cannon in Castiel's forefinger, but he stills himself. Charlie is actually patting him.

"Look, it's okay. I did a lot of studies on Alphas back in the day. And I don't like to say this in front of Omegas, but you guys are victims just as much at the Omegas are. That Sery-NL? Humans used to rip out their own eyeballs on that stuff. Don't get me wrong - I'll be keeping an eye on you. If you get out of line? Boom. You're done here." She leads Castiel to his seat, slides over to the driver's position. "But I've been working on the Station's intranet. I saw your file, Castiel. I know why you left."

These autos are cramped, confining things. Not enough air circulation. A guttural growl rises in Castiel's throat, panic tightening his throat. "Oh yeah? Why's that?"

"Calm down, geez. You were scheduled for termination. Heck, you probably didn't know this, but they've been watching you for a while."

 _Alfies_. "You've been in the Station's system. You saw my file?" 

"Saw you at the Commander's birthday, too. I probably even saw you back in my school days. Not many Betas visit the Station, but we Bradbury's are information-keepers - as if Ray himself wouldn't be rolling in his grave if he could see us now," she adds under her breath. Castiel has no idea what she's talking about. "So yeah, I've seen an Alpha or two. Stop shaking, Cas. I'm not going to out you unless you hurt somebody." 

Castiel gives her a tight nod. Beneath the blindfold, his eyes are stinging again. Charlie drops him off at his pod with a sly wave and a wink. 

This is someone he cannot afford to underestimate. 

The shower in his pod is more of a weak trickle, but Castiel does his best to scrub every inch, checking carefully for any viruses she might have dropped on him. In front of the bathroom mirror he scans his arm and eye. They come up clean. Sighing, Cas digs his bad hand in his hair, raises his single eye. Too much scruff around his jaw. His hair is getting longer, one dark smear reaching his socket, tickling the useless fold of skin. On instinct he tries to brush it away, but the sight of the scarred stump catches him. 

He's scrambling for his com-tab before he knows it. Only a towel draped around his shoulders, his stupid empty socket still gaping and his stupid ugly stump still rotting on the end of his arm. 

Alphas are precious. Castiel may be defective, but he's still got viable sperm. Alphas are the powerhouses of the Sphere. Rarer than Omegas and Betas alike - only one in every twenty infants is born an Alpha. This is what Castiel knows, and he sure as hell doesn't need Naomi's reassurance. He doesn't need some rebel Beta giving him doubt. 

Termination. As if.

Castiel swats at his stump, brings up his bad hand to operate the com-tab, but somehow he can't quite complete the call. He brings up his messages instead, but there's no update on when he can expect his sedatives to arrive. 

The drumming of the evening rains starts up, and Castiel suddenly remembers he's got to buy a new food-unit. Hopefully he has enough money left on his card; Naomi hadn't said anything about when he would get paid again. The new unit he finds is a cheaper older model. Only bison or elk, no hybrid steaks, but it'll do. Castiel eats his dinner. He does his workout. He lies on his cot and wonders if Dean's working at the strip club tonight. If Dean would even want to see him there. 

Not that it matters. As an Alpha, Castiel isn't supposed to worry about making a damn Omega uncomfortable. 

_Scheduled for termination._

They were watching him for years. Chuck said the same thing.

With the shades drawn against the neon glare of the City nights, this pod could be a tomb. Reaching up, Castiel finds the fragile shape of an air-plant, clutches it in the only true hand he has.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of talking. Maybe something else.  
> Warning for references to cannibalism and me destroying the Omegaverse for everybody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I support medical marijuana as will become... obvious. I feel I should warn for that.
> 
> Anyways. Life is wild. Updates, sporadic.

Every finger is curled tight, cramped and unmoving. It's been hours, long enough for the pain to shoot down his arm, throbbing every muscle. Castiel wants nothing more than to release his fist. Except there is no fist. There is no hand. There's nothing but a stump. Just to make sure he raps it on the bar counter, signalling for another drink. At the opposite end of the bar Dean is wrapped in faintly glowing tubes, bells tinkling when he raises his bottle. Castiel could regret missing the dance, but then again Dean is resplendent in repose not six feet away.

Dean grunts something, jerks his head. When Cas doesn't reply he shifts his weight, jerks his head harder. Raps his bottle once on the counter and sighs. Clears his throat. From the corner of his eye Cas studies each fidgeting finger, each quirk of his lips. Eyes jerking over once or twice before they abort their own distress call. When he's ready Cas gives him mercy - just a dead-eyed stare, the one that used to spook the other Alphas. "Yes, Dean?"

"Dude," Dean huffs. "Come here."

"Why?"

"I wanna talk to you."

Cas frowns down at the glowing panels on Dean's boots. "What about?"

Conversations and scents bubble around the club, but they're the only two on this side of the bar. No reason for Dean to scoot closer to Castiel and drop his voice to a whisper. "I'm tryna apologize, all right? You were right."

"I know."

With a wrinkle of his nose, Dean sets his mouth in a surly pout. "Well, you don't have to be a dick about it."

"You were a dick first."

"Man, suck my dick."

Blinking, Cas finally looks Dean in the eye. Immediately Dean is blushing, passing it off with a chuckle. "Rude," Cas growls, but Dean holds up a placating hand, wiggling a nACHR tube between his fingers. He quirks an eyebrow in a silent question, and Castiel follows him back out to the alley where post-rain mist still rises from the City. Dean lights the tube and passes it to him before taking a drag. As the smoke unfurls Cas finds a seat on an empty GoBits case while Dean pokes distractedly at his comtab. "Interesting model," Castiel offers.

"Made it myself," Dean shrugs. "Hijacked a broken maker unit and a projector."

Castiel raises an eyebrow. No way was Dean raised in the Court's engineering school. "Crude, but not bad."

"What, you done better?"

"Take the compliment, Dean."

"Aw, sweetheart. You're too kind." When Castiel only takes another drag, Dean sighs, scratches a hand through his hair. "So. About yesterday. Maybe I overreacted a bit."

"You're just passionate," Castiel shrugs. "But maybe... temper it down a bit."

"It just pisses me off."

"What does?"

"Everything." Dean spins on his heel, hands thrown out. "This whole fucking Sphere. The Omegas. The Betas. The fucking monsters up in the Station."

"You mean the Alphas?"

"I've always wanted to an expose on Alphas," Dean says, gazing up at where the smoke from his lips meets the mist. In the dimming lights of the Sphere everything is glazed a soft rose. "Once Charlie hacks into the Station's systems, we'll have it."

If not for the mist, or the series of catwalks, or the towering podblocks, Castiel could look up and see the foundations of the Courts. Even the shafts are hidden in the walls of the Sphere. From down here, the Station may as well not exist. "And what do you plan to expose about Alphas?"

"Sam doesn't believe me but... I think they're the ones really in charge here," Dean says, voice dropping to a whisper.

Cas opens his mouth. Shuts it. 

"No! I'm serious. I mean, we all just think they're mindless breeders. Hell, Sam says they might not even have brains. But think about it. Has anyone really ever seen an Alpha sober? And really, why can't we grow humans? Think about it, Cas.

See the truth is - we can. And we did. But the Alphas shut it down because it wasn't - it wasn't exploitative enough for them. They're cruel, sadistic bastards. They're the ones controlling the Betas. Giving them the illusion of power, but notice-" Dean thumbs up at the sky - "the Station is _above_ the Courts. And no one down here ever, ever sees it. I know you think they're just rapist monsters, but lemme tell you, Cas. They're the evil geniuses behind all of this."

What Dean is saying is sort of the folklore taught at the Academy. When Castiel was twelve, perhaps, he believed Alphas were the most powerful of all beings in the galaxy. Except for the fact that Alphas are emphatically not in charge. Defenders and producers of humanity, sure - but it's the cold, persuasive logic of the Betas that really rules the Sphere. "You know," Cas says. "That makes sense."

"I knew it, man!" Dean grins, bringing up his hand. Unsure of what to do, Castiel raises his palm and lets Dean slap it. He's very forceful, but it doesn't seem like a punishment. In fact, Dean clasps his hand and shakes it. "Everyone thinks that's ridiculous. I mean, of course the Betas wouldn't like the sound of it. They think they're so smart."

"Oh yeah," Cas says. "Me and my Beta intelligence."

Dean blinks down at him. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right, Dean." Dean is rocking on his heels. Scooting down on the case, Cas pats the spot next to him for Dean to sit down.

"I'm an ass," Dean mutters. "I just. I don't know where to draw the line sometimes."

"You're passionate. And your intentions are good."

"Yeah, sure, Cas." Pausing, Dean takes the tube from Castiel's waiting hand and inhales a long drag. "I just wonder. Maybe I'm not right for this job."

The hand - the stump - is tucked deep in Castiel's pocket. Although the Sphere is kept at a constant temperature, it's feeling oddly cold. He wiggles it, feeling the sensitive skin against the leather. "The stripping, or the activism?"

"Both? I don't know." Dean picks at one of the tubes snaking around his hips. "Don't get me wrong. But I'm not here reclaiming my sexuality or whatever. It's always been mine. I've never had that taken from me. Sometimes it isn't easy to recruit Omegas. I'm trying to protect them - us - and they just. Don't wanna fight. They think the battle's already lost."

"Could be the flouride."

"Flouride?"

"I'm a Waters, Dean. If there's one thing I remember from my failed schooling, it's the composition of the rains. Historically fluoride was used to quell sentiments of rebellion - free thinking." In his hand, back in the pod, is the data. The small needle used to prick his finger as well, measure the levels of drugs and blood sugar in his system for the Station doctors. He'll have to put it back on for the next rain. He should be measuring it daily, transfer the data to reels. "Levels of unrest in the City are at an all time high. Perhaps desperate times call for archaic measures."

Dean laughs, dismissive. "Yeah, and maker jelly is made of people."

"Could be true."

"One conspiracy theory at a time, Cas."

"Fine. Maybe it isn't the fluoride. Maybe the Omegas are right."

"Are they? Then why are you here?"

Dean's too close again. Taking a deep breath, Castiel focuses on the pain at the end of his stump. Thinks about the shadowed eyes of the Omegas he's seen,and the exuberance of the Omegas still dancing inside the club. Maybe broken things can heal, he thinks with a sudden wildness. Maybe these cracks can be filled. There's still pain in his hand, but it's not as bad as it was when Raphael had attacked him. All of the bones shattered - it would've taken too long to heal, the Station doctors said. In the meantime, his muscles would atrophy. He'd miss out on his workout routines. So they cut off his hand and slapped a new one on him. One that branded him as property. He'd only had one eye at the time. No reels to record. Yet the image of his severed hand being dropped in a disintegrator remains in high definition.

"I don't know why I'm here," Castiel says finally. "I just want to do _something_. And you have Omegas on your side. You have plenty willing to fight. That doesn't mean everyone has the strength - and it's okay if they don't."

"Not in the City. Not anywhere in this god damned Sphere."

"Well, maybe that's something you can change. Isn't that the whole point? Creating change?" It's official. Castiel is the worst Alpha ever born. But when he raises his chin to meet Dean's eyes through a haze of nACHR smoke, he can't find a fuck to give. "It's going to take time. But right now? You need to build them up, Dean. They know the horrors - they've lived through them. Don't drag them through the past. Find out what they want for their future. Show us the light at the end of the tunnel."

"Sometimes I'm not sure if there is a light."

Castiel is saying nothing. Castiel is saying complete bullshit. But somehow, he believes it when he looks at Dean. "Well. I see it."

"Wish I had your eyes."

"You really don't."

"Yeah. I don't know what I'd do with all the people throwing themselves at my feet." It's a moment of levity. A distraction from the turn their conversation has taken. But Castiel feels heat rise in his cheeks. As if Dean doesn't have a nice set of eyes himself. As if it isn't completely ridiculous for them to talk about such a thing when it's dark enough that he can't even see the green.

"Is that... a flirtation?"

"Could be."

"Oh." Throbbing stump and all, Castiel smiles. The nACHR tube slips between Dean's fingers, pressing between his own, and he has no idea how they came so close. Dean kisses him somewhere between his temple and his ear. A quick, dry press of lips, and then it's over.

"Shit, I'm sorry, I should've-"

"It's fine." Fuck, but fine barely begins to cover it. There's something warm and spidery traipsing from the place where Dean kissed him, shivering across his cheek and trailing down his spine and even his stump is tingling. Dean smells like everything, like things Castiel has never known but he can't wait to discover, and then the nACHR tube is falling to the ground when he grabs the lapel of Dean's coat and pulls him even closer. When their lips meet he can't help but crack a smile, because he's right here amidst the lowest levels of the City kissing an Omega and if Raphael or Uriel or Chuck could see him now -

Dean laughs again, presses another kiss to the corner of Castiel's mouth. "Gorgeous," he whispers. "Cas, you're-"

"Look who's talking," Cas says, and shuts him up with his lips. Their tongues slide together naturally. Conscious of his stump, Castiel brings his one hand up to Dean's shoulder. Holds his Omega closer, lets his Omega's hands slip up into his hair. It's so easy to just step forward once, then again, until Dean is pressed against the club door and Cas can kiss his Omega senseless, drink down his scent until it sinks beneath his skin. Softly it builds, a gentle warmth unlike anything else in the Sphere, anything in the universe. This rushing of blood should be terrifying, but in this secluded embrace it feels good to be powerful. It's all his Omega breathing strength into him - not drugs, not a forced heat, nothing but the two of them melting together. Forgetting himself he brings both arms up, but if Dean notices the stump he doesn't do anything. Even if Dean could see it - so what. His Omega thinks Cas is gorgeous; he said so. Cas wouldn't even need two hands to pick up his Omega.

_His Omega._

Oh.

No.

"God damn, Cas," Dean is saying. "You don't even play, do you? Been thinking about this since I first saw you, but, _wow._ "

Pulling back, Cas sees the lust in Dean's eyes. Smells the scent of arousal. Dean is nearly falling into him, and all Castiel think to do is shove. Shove Dean back. Hurl himself up, knocking the case aside with his heart pounding in his dry throat. Dean is stumbling. He tries to catch himself, comtab falling from his pocket and every instinct in Castiel is screaming to catch him, help him up, protect the Omega.

"I'm sorry." He tries to put force into it, but he's stammering, weak. An incinerator bumps him from behind. Swearing, he twists away from the heat. "I'm sorry - Dean, I'm sorry, I can't, I can't," and he's babbling now, tripping over his own damn feet. Then he's turning and running, sprinting down the alley away from Dean's voice. He takes the first turn he sees, runs straight through a holoscreen and nearly knocks over an Omega. The scent of fear and worry slows him, but she's swatting at him with her bag now and yelling for him to watch where he's going.

"Are you all right?" Castiel looks at her pregnant belly. There's a pup in there. Helpless. Weak. _Pup._

"Shiv off, asshole!"

Still jogging, Castiel throws her a salute. Wrong hand. She doesn't seem to notice the stump, at least. Keep running. Another swelling pup, another fragile Omega, but he can't stop to look. It's not safe. None of them are safe, and it's all his fault. Wheezing, Castiel picks up the pace. Faster, he's got to go faster, but his tongue is swollen in his mouth and there's a pain in his stomach, a heat behind his eyes, a feeling so massive his first rut is dwarfed in comparison to the blazing sun of _need._

Headlights shine in his eyes and he roars, swats at the glow. The auto is still hovering. One hand dents carbon fibre, but when he follows it up with his stump the sudden pain sends him reeling, falling flat on his ass with his trenchcoat spilled around him.

"Cas! It's me!" The lights dim, revealing a squat yellow auto. A gull-wing door swings up, and Charlie's waving. Snarling, Cas tries to rise, but he trips on his own coat and goes sprawling again. Charlie is laughing. A Beta is fucking laughing at him and Castiel slams his forehead into the steel sidewalk. Still panting from his run, he can't find it in him to even be angry at her. "I have a stun gun and I'm not afraid to use it," Charlie says. "So get your ass in gear and get in the car."

"Get away from me," Cas snarls.

"No can do."

"How did you find me?"

"Don't make a scene, honey," Charlie snaps. "Come on, you drunk bastard. Fore I have to drag you in or phone a copter. Again."

"I'm not drunk!"

"Quit your fucking lying, Al _fred_."

And then Castiel realizes how they must look. It's a busy street in the bar districts of the City. Already some passing Betas are turning their heads to stare at the scene they're making. The dent in Charlie's auto is pretty noticeable, and a drone copter seems interested. After so much running the sway of his legs isn't even feigned, but he goes with it, lets Charlie pull him in the auto. It's cool inside, the air conditioner on full-blast. Castiel sighs, scratches his good eye. It often itches when he gets sweaty. He should be grateful, but he can't help but grouch at Charlie. "What are you, my keeper?"

"Eh. I just put a little virus in your bloodstream. No big deal. Just lets me know where you are and your current, ah, emotional state."

"Great." Rolling his shoulders, Cas slumps in the bucket seat. They're gliding in lazy circles, dodging catwalks, neon glows drifting through the cab.

"It's actually really neat. I got these heat-sensitive nanobots loaded with chemical tracers. They latch under the tongue - any soft tissue, really - and whoom. Hey, nothing personal. But you're one Alpha in a whole world of Omegas, and I told you I'd be keeping an eye on you." She glances at the slack sleeve of his coat. "You took your hand off. Any specific reason?"

"No."

"You gonna tell me what happened?"

"No."

With one hand she sets a comtab on the center console, pulls up a grid. Glancing between it and the airways, she flicks through with her thumb. A small cluster of red dots wander through the grid. "So, let's see here. You went to the strip club again, annnd..."

"And Dean kissed me."

"Awesome."

"Awesome," Cas repeats. "Did you hear what I just said? Dean kissed me. I'm an Alpha and he's an Omega and dammit, he smelled amazing. This is why! This is why we have to be separated!"

"DId you make out with all of the Omegas?"

"What - no! Just Dean."

"So you made out with him. But he kissed you first?"

"I didn't - argh." Digging his nails in his scalp, Cas tries not to remember how good Dean's fingers had felt there. "I didn't want to do it."

"Next time? Just say no."

"It wasn't that simple, Charlie."

"Oh yeah?"

"I... I wanted to do it."

"Poor Alpha," Charlie laughs. "This is great. Alphas and Omegas interacting in the wild. I'm gonna go Goodall all over you guys."

"Is this a joke to you?"

"I've always been interested in behavioral science," she says with typical Beta nonchalance.

Scowling, Cas looks back out the window. Below them the City is still slipping by in a blur of lights. The half-lit cube of his podblock arises, recognizable by the same three ads that loop twenty-four hours a day. He's never seen it from the top; never knew there was a grid of catwalks superimposed on the roof for resident parking. A few old autos hover in place, rusted by decades of rains. Charlie leads the way to an elevated pad alight with numbers, presses one with her foot.

"That's not my level."

"Well, hello, neighbor."

"Can we go to my pod? I have some sedatives at my place."

"Really." Charlie studies him. "Did you get them from the Station doctors?"

"Where else? They're the only thing that can control me."

"No, Cas. Look at you. You're shaking," she says, gently. "Come on. We're gonna go to my place. I've got something better."

"Do you have lorazepam?" Following her down the hallway, Cas wonders if Naomi has been able to fulfill his request yet. There could be some at his pod waiting. "Oxy-10? D-Morph? Please tell me you have D-Morph."

"Whoa, redline. They gave you heroin?"

"Heroin?"

"Sweet Spheres, kid. Never mind. Clearly, my services are needed." Stopping before a door, Charlie keys in her code. It slides open and reveals a pod slightly bigger than Castiel's and with a dozen screens blaring. She tuts, snaps her fingers, and they simultaneously shut off. Advanced voice recognition, Cas realizes. With the screens darkened it's a lot more peaceful. There's a brightly woven rug covering the concrete floor. A low table is set with figurines, some locked in battle, some sensuously posing. A tiny woman blinks sultry eyes at Castiel, and he frowns back at her. Blushing, Charlie orders the robots away and they dutifully roll underneath a green sofa leaking polyfill. She gestures for Cas to sit. From a shelf draped in strands of golden lights Charlie pulls out a vase with a single silver-tipped tentacle on one end and a small green box. It's labeled TetraCan but it's not the usual liquid. This is a fine golden powder with an odd smell. It almost reminds Castiel of his air-plants. Green, snappy, a little musty. "This could be really irresponsible of me," Charlie says. "But this right here? Excellent sedative."

"I've tried that before. It was different, though."

"You probably got one of those vape pens," she sniffs. "This here is real sax. I got this up in the Courts."

It's all a very elaborate affair, involving glowing cubes hot to the touch. The tentacle is a mouthpiece, and the first drag of it is sweet and smooth, completely unlike the harsh tang of the nACHR tubes. Yet when Cas exhales a thick cloud of smoke a coughing fit overtakes him. He curls around himself while Charlie pounds his back, giggling. "That enough for you, big guy?"

The effect is almost immediate. All of the raging pheromones are soothed. Blinking, Castiel gazes at the clouds he's puffed dissipating into a haze. He swears his body temperature has dropped ten degrees but he's strangely warm. A fuzzy blanket has crept underneath his coat. He isn't sure why he's still wearing his coat, honestly. It's a relief to take it off and toss it to the floor, lay back on the couch. His stump is there. Cas smiles down at it. It's a pretty cool stump. It isn't even hurting anymore. Charlie doesn't even seem to notice it. She should notice how cool his stump is, but when he tries to ask her she just takes a hit from the mouthpiece.

"It's been hurting me for hours," Cas presses. "This is awesome."

"Oh my god," Charlie says. "Getting you high was such a good idea."

It's like the top of his head has been released. Every tightened valve has been released, and cool liquid is flowing through his veins. Castiel can barely remember a life before steroids, firing guns, constant fights. This must have been what it was like. "Can I have some of this?" he asks, his voice sounding strangely level and calm. "I have to get some reels ready for Kevin. I think this will help."

"Reels? Of the brood-farms?"

"Yeah." Cas laughs. "Every time I see them, I lose it. I have panic attacks! I even blacked out," he whispers conspiratorially. "I must have looked so stupid; getting comatose on Dean."

"We call that PTSD, Cas." Charlie looks bemused. She places the vase back on its shelf. That's fine. Castiel doesn't think he could handle any more than this single hit.

"Three times! Three times. I went to the broodfarms and guess what? I couldn't even mate!" On some other plane of consciousness Cas can see himself laughing too much. He's too relaxed, oversharing. But Charlie is just sitting there, soft smile on her face, and she's listening. She knows he's an Alpha. But she doesn't know about Naomi and whatever fucking mission Castiel is supposed to be on. What a bullshit mission. "I had to - had to - jack off in a tube. I'm the worst Alpha ever. There's no way Dean should find me attractive." He sits up on the couch. Right. Dean is the whole cause of this. "Charlie. What am I going to do about Dean?"

"Whatever you two want," she says.

"I'm giving Kevin the reels. But I don't want Dean to - you know. Go too far with them. Dean goes too far. But he's just..." and Cas drawls off, searching for the word, "...passionate."

"He won't. Trust me. Between me, Kevin, and Sam, we'll keep him in check."

"Dean is so..."

"I know, buddy." Charlie pats his shoulder. It's a shock at first, but it's not bad. It's almost nice. "Look. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, Cas. Dean doesn't do anything halfway. It's all or nothing with that guy."

"That's very Alpha of him."

"See?" Charlie digs her elbow in Castiel's side. The action should trigger some rage reaction, but Cas finds himself relaxing into it. "Not so different after all."

"Why don't you arm wrestle me and I'll show you how different we really are?" Wrestling, yeah. That's what Cas hasn't had a chance to do in a while. Not that he cared much to brawl at the Station. Not after - not after Raphael. Cas slides from the couch and braces his arm on the table, raising an eyebrow at Charlie. She laughs, follows him.

Grabs his stump.

Well.

It's his strongest arm, after all.

The win is easy, but he's careful not to hurt her. Charlie is still wringing her hand after. But she's still grinning, and now they're sprawled around her low table. Cas's stump is out there for the whole world to see, for everyone to stare, but it's just him and Charlie and she isn't even looking. He's never had much of a chance to examine the scars, though, so he does now. They had cauterized it pretty quickly. It's a weird twisting mess of flesh, yet oddly smooth.

It was Castiel's first annual mating. None of them had known what to expect. All Cas knew was that there were holes, and he would put his knot in them. The Alphas had been bathed and drugged, and he had felt the low burning in his belly at the beginning of his first rut. Waiting in line, sweat dripping in his eyes. Every Alpha was vibrating.

Then there was - the room.

Maybe it was the eyes. Closed eyes all down the line. Maybe one of them opened.

Something happened. Castiel did something. Whatever it was, the other Alphas didn't care for it. Scattered shards of glass, blood clotting his eyes, teeth sinking into his throat. Seeing his own hand in the wrong place. Raphael's teeth stained with blood. Then nothing but the spotlight above the hospital bed. He'd tried to move it out of his eyes, but he hadn't been able to gauge the distance.

The story spills out too easy between them. Cas swats with his stump in a pantomime. He keeps his words short and his descriptions bare. But it's out there, now, and for the first time Charlie looks at his stump.

"I'm surprised they didn't put me down right then and there," Cas says. "I missed two entire days of exercises before my prosthetics were ready."

"So you never - you never -"

"Mated successfully? No. But they tried. Two more times."

"What about the other Alphas? The ones who attacked you?"

"What about them?" Cas slips his stump off the table. "Their behavior was entirely natural. Though I think Raphael must have had some digestion problems. I don't think fingernails have any nutritional value. Do they?"

"I dunno." Beneath her red fringe, Charlie studies her own fingernails. "Maybe calcium? That's good for you."

Too easy. All of this is too easy. Cas doesn't even have reels of that first time in the brood-farms. He's surprised he can even remember it. "Charlie? Can I ask you a favor?"

She has all of the equipment he needs. Pulling out his eye, Cas drops it in the reader. Over at the food unit Charlie is muttering about pizza, giving him privacy. Most of his memories aren't worth lingering over. The two in question are simple enough to find. Familiar enough. They're the same color as the others. They should be labeled bright yellow. Caution picts surrounded.

With a snap of his fingers he unrolls the strip. Duplicates it - twice, just in case. No microdot printing this time. He trims the edges of the strips before rolling them into tight reels and saving. Before long they're sitting neatly in the printer output. Just two small reels. That's all.

As it turns out, pizza is delicious.

By the time Castiel stumbles to his own pod, the lights of the Sphere are rising and Castiel's hand is still sitting on the bathroom counter. Unread messages blink their appearance on his comtab. A workout reminder has gone off, the little holographic humanoid still grunting through the routine. He ignores it all. Falls down on the cot, and just _breathes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are so appreciated i know this is weird and im sorry but


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while lmao but i want to get back in this!! the big bangs are over. let us cyberpunk.

"Alphas are the bedrock of the Sphere," Naomi says. "The pinnacle of physical perfection - and the only humans capable of producing viable sperm. Without the Alphas defending us, we would be destroyed by aliens."

"Even an Alpha like me?"

"Especially an Alpha like you." Leaning into her screen, Naomi smiles a tight-lipped grin that doesn't reach her eyes. "In fact, your unique method of reproduction means we can induce multiple pregnancies. Most Alphas hit five or six before they wear out, but with your sperm? We can manage twenty pregnancies at a time. One of your own daughters is a Waters like me."

Twenty. 

Two hundred and sixty pregnancies.

Well. Minus sixty - that would be the three times he failed to mate. Cas drops his comtab in his lap and leans back against the cot, giving Naomi a good look at his nostrils.

"Now," Naomi continues, "where exactly did you get this idea that Alphas could be terminated?"

"I don't know," Cas says.

"Did a Beta tell you this?"

"No."

"Don't be afraid of them, Castiel. You're an Alpha. They can't hurt you."

"Some... some of the Betas," Cas says lamely. "They have a lot of ideas. One of them even told me maker jelly was people."

Naomi laughs at that, shaking her head. "I'm glad you came to me with this, Castiel. You know you can tell me anything, right? I know the City is a strange place, but if you ever have any questions, you can always ask me."

"You'll set me straight." Cas picks up his comtab again. If he adjusts his position, he can rest the elbow of his other arm up on the cot. He arranges himself casually. On his screen, the stump is visible, but not too obvious.

Naomi stops laughing. 

Cas drags his stump through his hair, as if he's just running his fingers through it. 

"Do you need a refitting?" Naomi asks.

"Hm? Oh." Glancing at his stump as if he's seeing it for the first time, Cas shrugs. "It's fine. I just left it off for today."

"Where is it?"

"I don't know... but I suppose if anyone finds it, they can report it to their nearest dronecopter."

"Castiel," Naomi says, sharply. "What have you been told?"

"As I said. The Betas have a lot of ideas."

Naomi's connection abruptly drops. Dropping his comtab, Cas climbs on top of the bed to see out the window. There's no dronecopters. Not yet.

There's very little in this pod that he needs. He's already withdrawn all of his cash - it's tucked away into a pocket of his new coat. That bank activity alone was enough to draw suspicion. The airplants are secure in his coat as well. On second thought, he grabs the used maker unit. It's small enough to fit under his arm, and his coat has many pockets for the spare jellies. He'll have to leave his comtab, but he's got a strip of microdots in his pocket.

Far away, the sound of approaching dronecopters.

Struggling with one hand, Cas tries to pull on his coat. Three times it falls to the floor, and three times he picks it back up. He'll have to give up on the zipper. It's dark brown canvas and softly padded, a far cry from his long black leather. Beneath it he wears a plain black shirt and loose jeans. It was tricky finding something that would fit, so he had to buy them in a few sizes too large and hold them up with a belt. 

He likes his new clothes. The clothes and the coat Naomi gave him couldn't be trusted - potential wires woven in the fibers, tracking devices. Before this, all he ever wore was his red jumpsuit at the station. This is his coat now, and he can even roll up the sleeve around the stump if he so chooses. 

There's only one thing left to do. 

Cas throws his prosthetic out the window in full view of the dronecopters. His fingers are clumsy around his eye. It pops out with a quick, slick sound and leaves sticky damp on his fingers, but he tosses it out after the hand. A gust of air stings and chills his skull, but he's prepared with gauze patches and sunglasses. Then - without a look back at the white-walled pod that was never his anyways - he leaves.

The whole thing was well thought, he guesses. But he forgot the part about depth perception. 

Two dronecopters must have locked onto his DNA signature just in time, because when Cas exits the podblock they're there. When he starts running they're there. When he's cornered in a catwalk-lined alley amongst incinerators they're there. But when he throws out his good arm to catch one, suddenly it isn't there.

Growling, Cas jabs out again. The drone leaps up and away from him, but he follows it, leaping on top of an incerator and then grabbing one, twice, three times for a catwalk. With his good hand thus occupied, all he can do is swat with his stump at the drone. 

That arm is still his strongest, at least.

The first drone goes crashing into the walls. But the second is coming fast, and if Castiel pretends he's doing a one-armed pull-up only to swivel his hips and kick - yep, there it goes.

Smoke rises from the smashed drones. His good arm aches. But Cas holds on for a moment longer before vaulting up onto the catwalk, panting. Just like the simulations. Except here he doesn't know the outcome. So he keeps running, and when the rain comes and all traffic on the air and in the streets comes to a halt, he keeps running. 

 

Cas should have kept his eye and hand. The parts would sell for good money. A child cocks her head, staring at the maker, and he doesn't know where to look. She's sneaking around a produce stand with a cabbage under her arm Cas actually watched her steal.

Here in the shantytowns where not everyone can afford a maker unit, they actually sell food. 

And the Omega children, it seems, simply run wild.

It's something out of the historical reels, but here Cas is, watching with his own eyes. Observing from the wide berth they give him - and when Castiel studies them, sees nothing but children and pregnant bellies, he realizes he's the only one here who isn't an Omega. There's more diversity among the Omegas that he ever imagined - there's a few tall and sturdy ones among the fragile and the wisps - but they give a healthy distance to Castiel. 

He finds the newstand easily enough in the marketplace. At first he doesn't recognize it. The tables are stacked with flat, folded sheets displaying Beta glyphs and still images. But he recognizes the Omegas Underground publication easily enough.

"How much?" he asks, and immediately hates himself for breaking the silence.

It's quite a bit of money, but Cas doesn't realize until after he's left that he was probably charged more. The room he rents seems overpriced. Three hundred for a dismal cube - no bed, no furniture, nothing but a few shelves an archaic toilet. 

When the Rains come, the streets are flooded in a grey sludge. 

His neighbors unfold plastic chairs on their corrugated tin roofs and wait for it to subside. The first flood, Cas struggles to the roof of his apartment, glad that he took advantage of the high shelves built within his unit. His neighbors are opening strange canned drinks, cheap nACHR tubes passing between their fingers and the thick tang of TetraCAN in the air.

This happens twice daily.

The drains here are just slow, and no Betas will bother to fix them.

The thin walls mean Cas gets to know his neighbors quickly. Ricky lives on his very left. The Omega spends his days drinking. Nothing will ever change, according to him. He has charts and graphs, multiple conspiracy theories that all end in nothing. He thinks maker jelly is people.

Nicole lives on the right. She found one of her children down in the marketplaces of the Oven, and keeps the girl Omega a secret. The child wants to be a Waters. She's bright enough. She breaks Castiel's heart.

Down here in the slums, the Omegas Underground are a joke. 

The broodfactories stand tall enough to cast a constant shadow over them all.

Cas still has his airplants. Sometimes he'd think he'd like to give them to his neighbors, but that would be weird. There's no reason for him to hang on - Cas fucked up. He can't help the Omegas; he can't help Dean. 

His neighbors are suspicious of his height, of the muscles on his frame. Their laundry flutters on lines, their pregnant bellies crowd the streets. 

The time of birthing comes too soon. 

Massive copters on the horizon are the first sign. The Omegas shudder, but they form their ranks as Castiel watches from his window, and there's nothing he can do about it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been sitting on this for a while but it might be a real long time before I even write again? I signed up as an artist for one bang and Real Life has made it very hard to write. But I wanted to throw this out there. There might be some mistakes here I don't know I definitely wanted to have Claire out before I fucked up this story yet again and decided to remove her lol.
> 
> Oh yeah, and I deliberately didn't make Amelia Claire's "mother" because 1. family relationships don't exist in this au and 2. I didn't want to subject a canon character to what Omegas have to deal with.

Someone is pounding at the door. Freezing, Cas turns from the drab view below the window. 

“Cas! Come on, dude,” says a familiar voice, and Castiel’s first instinct is to jump outside the window, but Dean keeps knocking. 

Dean looks rushed, stinking of Beta pheromones. He’s dressed plainer than Cas has ever seen him, and his jaw is scruffy. 

“Cas, we gotta go. Now.”

“You really shouldn’t be here,” Cas says. “The drones-”

“They know I don’t work! Look, we don’t have time for this. Charlie told me where to find you. And - let's just say, if she can find you? Those drone copters definitely can.”

“She told you -” Cas starts, but someone else is at the door. 

It’s his neighbor, the one with the Omega child. They’re awkwardly posed at the threshold, and the woman is making a face like her contractions are starting.

“Keep her safe? Just for now.”

“Uh,” says Cas.

“No problem,” says Dean. He’s already taking the girl by the hand, asking her name, and Nicole staggers off to join the birthing. 

Her name is Claire, and that’s all they can get out of her. Claire sits in the corner of the apartment, perched on the edge of the thin cot. She doesn't look much older than twelve, but Cas isn’t sure how Omegas age. Sniffing, Cas realizes that she’s already menstruated. 

He looks at Dean to see if he’s picking it up as well. 

Dean just folds his lips together.

If the girl has already menstruated, she should be pregnant by now. 

“All right,” Dean says, slapping his hands together. “So we really, really need to go. Like. Now. There’s no time - just - you with us, Claire?”

There’ll be time for questions later. For now they duck down the mildewed corridors, through doors of corrugated tin, avoiding any windows. The complex is empty by now, but the drones are growing closer. Cas can see flashes of light through the windows above them as they scan each Omega.

Something clicks behind them. 

A roaming bot drifts down the hall, scanning each apartment for stray Omega. They turn a corner and see yet another dragging a wailing Omega by robotic arms.

“Gom,” Claire hisses, and darts down a branching hallway. Dean and Cas follow her through a swinging aluminum door, down a set of steps, to a darkened room of full of incinerators. The worst of the flooding is here, stray garbage clogging up the floor drains, but Claire splashes through the muck until she reaches a broken gate leading to a tunnel of black and disappears.

“Come on!” she calls..

Dean pauses. “You know where this goes?” 

“Of course I do!” 

“Alright, alright.” Dean glances back at Cas, worry evident. The nature of the worry is something Cas doesn’t want to think about.

Cas has no idea what exactly Charlie told Dean, There’s a taser at his waist, and Cas hasn’t missed that the entire time Dean has been careful to position himself in between Cas and Claire. The roof of the tunnel is low, loose scraps of metal dangling, and the water is thick, but as Cas follows Dean all he can smell is fear.

Soon the sound of rushing water swells to a roar. A light ahead grows until they’re suddenly blinking under the Sphere, perched on the lip of a canal. Behind them, atop a cliff of solid steel, Cas sees the rear wall of the apartment complex, the rusting hulls of factories. Before them, across a network of canals, another wall rises. At the top, the rest of the Meatgarden district glowers through a cloud of pollution. This, Cas realizes, must be one of the lowest levels of the Sphere.

“The drains go that way,” Claire says, pointing. “Told ya I knew where I was going.”

“You do that often?” Dean asks, shaking his legs. All of their shoes are black with muck.

“I like to watch the drains empty. Sometimes - they say sometimes you can see Below.”

“Below?” Cas frowns. “Have you ever seen it?”

Claire shrugs. “Not yet.” 

“Not yet?” Dean pulls his comtab out of his coat, tapping away. “Dude, we’re, like, half a mile up from Below, and the entire atmosphere is choked with poisonous gas. I don’t think you ever wanna see it.”

“Actually, we’re three-quarters of a mile,” Cas says. “But it’s true - if you were ever exposed to the atmosphere outside the Sphere, you’d be dead instantly.”

“That’s not true!” 

Dean looks up from his comtab, blinking. “Maybe it is, maybe it ain’t. Anyways, our getaway driver should be here in a minute.” 

Soon enough, a yellow car pulls up, hovering over the canal. Charlie grins and waves at Castiel, as if there’s nothing to worry about. 

They can talk later. Not in front of an Omega child. But as they squeeze in the car the smell of Claire’s fertility is more obvious than ever, and Cas wonders at his own lack of reaction. 

“You got the live feeds up?” Dean asks, and Charlie flashes him a thumbs-up.

“Yep. Uh,” she says, looking between Cas in the passenger seat and Claire in the back-seat. “Do you want me to show you now, or do you wanna wait till we make it to your place?”

Claire looks at them both. “Live feeds of what? The birthing?”

“We got a few insiders,” Charlie shrugs. “Embedded some cams, you know.”

“I wanna see.”

“I don’t think that’s wise,” Cas says, and immediately regrets it. He has no room to tell an Omega what to do. There are children younger than her entering the brood factories right now. 

“I can handle it!” 

“You have no idea what goes on in there.”

“Exactly!” 

Turning in his seat, Cas glares at her. “Nicole has worked her ass off to protect you from this. She asked me to keep you safe. There is no way I’m going to violate her trust.”

Crossing her arms, Claire glowers, but she’s quiet.

“She’s an Omega,” Dean cuts in. “She has a right to know.”

Cas squints his single eye at Dean. “So is Nicole.”

“She’s fertile, she’s an adult!”

“Charlie? What do you think?”

“Excuse me? I’m just trying to drive.” 

“I want -” Claire starts, looking at her hands, “- I just want to know. I want to know what they’re going through. My friends are in the factories right now. I just want to see if they’re okay.”

The car falls silent. Cas stares fixedly out the windshield, at the rising towers of the City.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drop it like it's hot, all right.

At the headquarters, no one looks up at their entrance. Every eye is fixed to an array of screens. Claire immediately joins them, sitting on her knees with her hands balled up tight. 

She’s the only other Omega there besides Dean, but no one looks at her sideways. Kevin, Sam, and a few other Betas are busy tapping at comtabs, zooming in on the feeds occasionally. Some of them look like they're about to be sick.

Faint sounds come from the screens, but Dean quickly ushers Cas behind a darkened curtain of lights, into a room with a folding cot, and then into a washroom. Something with a door that can lock. Then he reaches into his pockets and sets a few items on the counter.

Mace. Two tasers, fully charged. A bottle of some clear white fluid that Cas can smell even while sealed. It makes him dizzy already.

“Thought I might need this,” Dean says, flat.

“Charlie told you.”

Cas meets Dean’s eyes, and Dean frowns at the empty socket. “What happened to all your gear?”

“I’m in hiding, Dean.” 

“Charlie - we had a long talk,” Dean says slowly. He folds down the toilet seat and takes a seat. “But I think I knew it as soon as we kissed. I don’t know what the hell you did to me.”

“You kissed me first.”

“You’re an Alpha.” Dean snaps. “I - Shit, I probably couldn’t help it.” 

“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” Cas shoots back at him. “The way - your scent - what was I supposed to do? I ran away, Dean. Don’t act like I was forcing you into anything. I know what you think of Alphas, and if you want to stun me and lock me up…”

“Which I obviously didn’t do,” Dean mutters, but Cas’s voice is shaking now.

“- you can do that. I guess I should’ve kept my prosthetics. Could’ve been of use to you.” 

Frowning, Dean studies Cas. Cas keeps his head high, but he can feel his good eye twinging. “Cas… shit.” He points at the weapons on the counters. “I’m not trying to fight you. Or hurt you. Damn it, Cas, I saw your reels! Kevin showed me, and Charlie filled in the gaps. You think I forgot that panic attack you had? You think I can’t see past my preconceptions? But - it’s hard for me. Don’t make it harder. Don’t make me lock this door.” 

“Oh.” Cas deflates. 

“It might get loud out there.” Dean jerks his head back at the rooms beyond, where the live feeds are displaying the birthing. “I know you don’t wanna see it. You can stay in here, or take a nap on the bed. We’ve got TetraCAN if you want.” Wiping his hands on his knees, Dean sighs and rises. He takes the tasers, the chemicals. “I will use these if I have to. Without question, without hesitation. As far as you’re concerned, you’re -”

“A prisoner.”

“Dammit, Cas. Charlie trusts you. But I. I don’t think I can do that. And I need to tell the others. They have the right to know.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s kind of your whole thing, isn’t it. Exposing the truth.” Stump aching, Cas slumps against the wall. Down on the floor. Maybe he should be angry. He could take Dean down in seconds. Make a run for it, go back to hiding in whatever hovel he can find.

Instead he folds his arms across his knees, bowing his head. 

All he wants to do is sleep. 

 

When he wakes, the bathroom door is open. Every Beta is standing before him, staring down. Claire folds her arms, but Charlie gently shoves her aside so she can crouch down beside Castiel. 

“You okay?” 

Cas doesn’t reply. The smell of fear and hate stings his nose. 

“You’re not what I was expecting.” Sam says. “You’re supposed to be - bigger.”

Baring his teeth, Cas shows off his canines. Flexes his traps, watches them cringe, then relaxes. 

Dried tear tracks on her face, Claire just stares at him blankly. Cas can’t meet her eyes. 

“All right, guys. Quick question - how many of you have seen an Alpha before?” Charlie puts a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. “How many of you have extensively studied them? How many of you know exactly what kind of sick drugs the Betas pump into their system? Yeah. That’s what I thought.” 

“Is the Birthing over?” Cas asks. It’s the only thing he can think to say to the group. 

“Yeah,” Charlie says, softly. “It’s all over now.” 

“Someone needs to give Claire a ride home."

"I'm not going anywhere. We've got an issue to write." The girl rubs at her eyes, but she looks determined. Cas hopes she's sent a message to Nicole. He'll have to remind her. For the first time, he notes the blue of her red-rimmed eyes. The shape of her face, still rounded by childhood, but with his own cheekbones. At least once in her life, Nicole was lucky enough to be artificially inseminated.

Gazing at his daughter, Cas huffs. "The Breeding comes soon. You should be safe here, though.” Cas wishes he could just hide again; he’s the poorest display of an Alpha right now. Days without exercises. Trying to not to sob. Curled around himself, laid bare before a crowd of Betas. Right now, though, all Castiel wants to be is Cas. Not Alpha, just… human.

He can’t remember the last time he thought of himself in those words. If he ever has. But when as he looks up at the Betas, all he sees are humans. Scared humans, sure. But Charlie is still beside him, and no one is running away. They’re waiting for him to do something. Say something. Struggling, Cas tries to find the words.

“I know you have no reason to trust me,” Cas starts. “But - I was supposed to be infiltrating you guys. At least, I thought. Now I’m just convinced the Station only wanted to get rid of me.”

Charlie raises her eyebrows, but says nothing.

“I have no connection to the Station anymore. And while I can’t change my biology… I want to change. Other things. You guys are trying to do that, and I wanna help you. In any way I can. I have information about the Station, about Alpha biology…” and he trails off, uncertain. “I have almost nothing to offer you. I'm strong. I can take down a dronecopter in a single punch? I don't know what else I can do. But I'm ready to do it, if you'll let me.”

"You know..." Kevin starts, awkwardly. "We couldn't see anything different. About the babies, I mean."

Dean has stayed in the back, but now he moves to the front. His lips are firmly pressed together. Cas meets his green eyes, hoping what he’s said is enough. 

“So you wanna help? How's this for starters? We have a new issue coming out tomorrow all about the Birthing, so we’ve got to hurry up and interview you. We’ll keep you anonymous, but it’ll spook the Elites for sure to know that we’ve got you in our grasp. Then I’m gonna teach you how to read. So you can be on the same page as us. And then… we’ll go from there.”

“The Elites will double their efforts to destroy you if they see my interview.”

“And we’ll be ready for that.” Cracking a smile, Dean folds his arms. “But, hell. We got an Alpha on our side.”


	10. Chapter 10

Cas hangs back when Dean and Charlie go to pick up the Omega’s from giving birth. They stumble in still hazy from the drugs, falling on the sofas without bothering to move any of the twisted cables that make up the foliage of the room. Busy with the CF machine, Cas steals glances and names while he sets out extra mugs.

Dev is a programmer. Judah used to work on the water filtration systems down in the Drains. He’s never caught a glimpse of Below, much to Claire’s chagrin. Adam used to write holovision advertisements. Now he corrects typos. Charlie introduces Cas in low tones, leaving out the part about how Cas is an Alpha. That can be explained later. Not while they’re still half-awake from the dream of the past few hours.

Cas is happy to learn they don’t remember much of the Birthing. Dev thinks she recalls the sound of a moaning infant. A splatter of fluid. He brings them steaming cups of CF, blushing. When they murmur thanks, Cas is too shy to say anything.

“We’re going down the Hub,” Dean tells them. “Kevin, Claire, you stay up here in case they all need anything. Sam, Cas, Char, you guys with me.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t write about the Birthing so soon after,” Sam says once they’re safely descending the steps.

“What, you got a better time in mind?” Dean asks, and Sam just sighs and jumps a few steps down.

Cas will always be unnerved by a Beta taller than him. Something unspoken passes between the Betas, and when Charlie and Sam settle down before the holoscreens Dean ushers Cas back to the same desk as before. Swallowing, Cas remembers his last panic attack.

Well, he doesn’t have his eye constantly re-running his past anymore.

Drawing up a screen, Dean gnaws on his lip. His eyes track Castiel’s every movement, until finally he shakes himself and assumes a mask of professionalism. A mic emerges from the desk, slides up toward his lips. “First day of Empty,” he mutters. “Time… three hours till Rain."

"You're interviewing me now?"

"I want this out tomorrow, okay? Now - right. Subject, Castiel. Alpha.”

“You said I’d be anonymous.”

“Editing, Cas.”

“Oh.”

“Fuck - I should’ve had Sam do this.”

“I think you should’ve had one of the other Omegas do this.” Hidden behind screens displaying endless lines of unreadable code, Castiel is too isolated. Dean is too close. “Wouldn’t that be much more interesting for your readers, anyways?”

“Heh.” Dean’s fiddling his fingers now, not even pretending to take notes. With a flick he swipes away the grid, pushes down the mic, and leaves Cas squinting in the darkness between them. “Yeah. You’re probably right. Let’s do a - a group interview, or something. Put you in the hot seat. Is that what you want?”

“It’s what I think is best,” Cas says carefully. Ambient screens cast a damp blue glow on Dean’s hips when he stands up. “Dean?”

He reaches into the shadows beneath his jacket, withdraws a strip of cloth. “Got this for you.”

When Dean slips up to his side, Cas holds his breath. Dean reaches around him to tie the cloth, and Cas breathes into the space under Dean’s arms. Hands card through his hair, adjusting it around the fabric, and then Dean’s face is too close, peering at at his handiwork. The strip fits cleanly over his socket. The exposed hole in his head wasn’t bothersome before, but now Cas is grateful to have it covered.

“Don’t wanna get dust in there.”

“Thank you.” Cas brings up his stump at first to feel.

“You know, Judah could make you something for that arm. He’s real good with bots.”

“Maybe I’ll take him up on that sometime.”

Dean still smells like some safe place Cas doesn’t know well enough to miss. His breath is close enough to taste. Somewhere the Rains are starting, the Drains opening up, and down here in the depths the churning of water sounds a distant hum.

Follow the flow.

All Cas knows is that Dean melts into his arms. That he tastes like something real. That Dean can clutch his own chest and drive his tongue into Castiel’s mouth like he belongs there. He curls around Cas’s body, crawls into his lap, ass shoving the desk askew. A new scent curls around them, something raw and sweet and slick.

Dean draws back, gasping.

“I thought you couldn’t -” Cas starts.

“Never been with an Alpha before,” Dean says, and kisses him again.

Just yesterday, Dean was ready to mace and drug him.

Now Dean slides his hands into Cas’s hair, and Cas shoves him back against the desk. Something breaks in Dean’s face. It’s too much like that time in the alley, but this time Cas can’t look away from Dean.

“This is why I didn’t want you to interview me.”

“Another Omega…”

“The other Omegas don’t affect me as you do.” Gently lifting Dean up onto the desk, Castiel slides back his chair. “If you want them to feel safe, don’t isolate me. Don’t bring - don’t drag this out, Dean.”

With that he leaves Dean alone amongst the screens. Sam and Charlie don’t look up from their work at his passing. Ascending the steps, Cas pauses to gather himself, wishing he had a nACHR tube.

At least he can help upstairs. Kevin has trouble using the antiquated maker unit, but Cas shows him how to work the screen and find a soothing, nourishing soup. Claire holds the spoon when Adam’s hands rattle, and Cas cleans up a spill, but soon Judah and Adam are fast asleep.

Dev, on the other hand, keeps her eyes on Castiel, giving him no choice but to putter around the room on some pretended mission.

“Looking for a nACHR cartridge? Try the kitchen.”

There’s an open box full of cartridges in the cabinet above the CF machine. His hands shake as he screws one into his tube.

Well. Dean’s old tube that Cas never returned. It still smells like him. Taking a long drag, Cas finally looks back at Dev. “Thanks.”

“Are you drugged?”

“Charlie gave me some TetraCan, earlier. That’s it.”

“Hm.” Dev shifts, wrapping the blanket tighter around their self. “She has good sax.”

Cas makes an affirmative noise. On the other couch, Kevin and Claire are pretending to play around with a set of g-sticks, wide-eyed. Dev’s gaze is cold, but Cas focuses on the dilation of her pupils.

“What do they give you? For the birthing?”

“Pain meds. Dissociatives. They’re always messing with the cocktail. When I was younger, I was a little more aware, but now... it’s just waking up empty.” Dev snorts. “And then, in a couple weeks, we wake up full again.”

“That’s… weird.”

“The weird part is seeing someone who looks like you walking around.”

Cas slides his eyes to the right to Claire, then looks back at Dev. She quirks her lips, shrugs one shoulder. Exhaustion drags on her expressions. Maybe it’s hard for her to sleep with Cas around. But Cas is trying new things, here. He's cross-legged on the floor and looking up at her. His hands come to rest on his knees. Cas is not waiting for or expecting anything. All he does is sit.

It's a small victory for no reason Cas can properly parse when Dev's eyes slide close. For a moment, all is quiet.

The shouts from downstairs are audible before Dean even slams open the door.

“We need feedback,” Dean announces. “Uh. Sorry, guys.”

Sam just brushes a sweep of hair from behind his eyescreen. “Okay. So, Dean and Charlie disagree with me, but I don’t think we can run this article yet.

“And I say, we just got live footage of the Birthing. No one’s ever done that before. We have more information than we-”

“I didn’t let you put those cams in me for nothing -” Dev starts.

Sam sighs. “Of course not. But all we have right now is more questions.”

“Why can’t you just run what you’ve got?”

“Because it’s pretty graphic? And we can’t just drop this bomb -”

“You don’t prove a conspiracy theory without evidence,” Kevin says. “They just go gom-wild and the Rains just up the fluoride.”

“Exactly! We need to find out how it happens before we say it’s happening. Somehow, the Elites are creating Alphas and Omegas, while keeping the rest of the population sterilized.”

“It doesn’t matter how it’s done,” Dean says. “Not yet.”

“Look. I’m just saying, Dean. You want to drop this and an interview with Cas on the same day, and I say that’s stupid. Why don’t we just have separate issues? Humanize Cas before we say Alphas and Omegas are all born equal or whatever. You know what’s going to happen? Half the people are going to say the films are doctored, and half of them are gonna flip out. Either way, the Elites win.”

“Every Omega you worked with is waiting for that article,” Judah interrupts. At his side, Adam frowns.

“We haven’t even seen their reels yet. Maybe they’re right.”

Voices grow louder. Sentences are getting cut off. Claire looks just as baffled as Castiel feels. Betas and Omegas alike, angry and defensive and posturing. If they would only start including fists, it’d be indistinguishable from the Station.

So much for the Beta control. Even the exhausted Omegas are rearing up from the couch, gesticulating wildly with limp fingers.

Claire tosses a wink at Castiel. Pats the seat on the couch beside her. Cas slips up next to her, and she turns to whisper in his ear. “I think I know what to do.”

“Okay.”

“But you should...” she asks, drifts off. “You know.” Her thin hand moves in a flapping circle. “Can't you calm them down?”

Cas stands up, and feels the muscles in his stomach clench. The voice comes from somewhere deeper inside him. It sounds like the roaring of the Rains, the grind of great engines. Yes, this is it.

In the echoed vaults of the Station’s gymnasiums, an Alpha’s shout could start or end a fight instantly. In such a small room, the sound thunders.

All Cas says is, “Please,” and the shock shudders Beta and Omega alike. Someone spills CF on the floor. Charlie drops her nACHR tube. Dean bites his lips. With an exaggerated point, Cas gestures to the girl beside him. Focuses their attention on anything but him. “Claire has something she’d like to say.”

“That was fucked,” Dev says.

Charlie is shaking her head. “Don’t do that again.”

Cas sits down.

“I mean it,” Charlie says. “Don’t - don’t do that.”

“It’s not that bad,” Dean says roughly. “It’s just - it’s loud.”

“It’s spooky,” Adam says.

“It did the job.” Claire folds her hands under her arms. “Listen. Guys. I think I know what - or where we need. You know those abandoned meatfactories?”

Slow revelation dawns.

“Space isn’t wasted in the Sphere,” Sam says wryly.

“I always thought they smelled funny.” Pulling his mouth into a frown, Dean looks at Charlie. “Char?”

A worried line appears between Charlie Bradbury’s brows “Those are abandoned. The technology is archaic, and they’ve been sealed for decades. Centuries, even. I don’t -”

Lies look awkward on Charlie, Cas decides. He holds up a silencing finger, and Charlie winces. “I think we’ll have a hard time breaking in,” he says. “I’ve seen the dronecopters patrolling that area at night.”

“Exactly.” Tapping her feet, Claire wriggles in excitement. “They’re hiding something there. I just know it.”

“We will get caught,” Charlie says flatly. “But. I can tell you -”

“Charlie,” Kevin says warningly, and even Claire scoots away from him on the couch.

Their expressions are something Castiel has seen before. The same impassive stare of Naomi. The way the Elite commanders surveyed the Alphas at the station. Cas feels the urge to stand to attention. To tuck his stump behind his back.

“I can tell you what you need to know,” Charlie finishes.

Need to know.

Bad choice of words. Dean gives Cas a wounded look, as if Castiel is somehow in on the secrets of the Elites. Shaking his head, slowly, Cas only focuses on Charlie. The scent of fear always lies heavy on the tongue.

“Of course we’re made in there.” As if it’s the simplest truth of the universe, Charlie walks into the kitchen. Presses at the CF machine without looking at it. “Of course we are. All of the biotech - we could grow human forms, but without the soul. Without consciousness. Even the best AIs lack that. But we could still grow flesh. We could grow organs. And so. Betas are sterilized. Omegas are given wombs. Alphas are given… you know.”

“Dicks. Knots.” Cas is suddenly and horribly conscious of his own. Judah shifts on the couch, as if what’s between his legs is haunting him as well.

“Everything happens there,” Charlie says. She’s rifling around the nACHR cartridges right now. “I can try to get your evidence from the intranet. Hell, I can get all the files and documentation you need. I can get you the exact dimensions of an Alpha’s parts. I can show you exactly what’s inside your slick glands. But don’t go to the factories. Don’t ever go near the factories.”

The room is silent. One of Charlie’s hand finally stabilizes around her CF mug.

“God dammit,” Kevin says softly, fiddling with the sig-stick clenched in his fist.

Dean opens his mouth and shuts it. A guarded look settles over his face, softening the lines of concern into a lie. Sam is nudging him, but Dean just shakes his head.

“I’m guessing you guys are all gonna go there now,” Charlie says. “But I’m not coming with.”

“Charlie, we can hack into their systems.” Kevin is already poking at his comtab. “If we both plug in, maybe we can mess with the copters. Block their feeds.”

“Without getting noticed?”

“Does it matter? They can’t trace us. You know they can’t trace us. Charlie, look at them. They’re going whether we want them to or not. They’re gonna -”

“Stop.” Raising a hand, Charlie takes a long sip of her coffee. “We’re going to have to set something up. A distraction for the drones. If we fuck with their signals, it’ll be noticed.”

“We can make an AI interface. Make it look like an ordinary night.”

“That’s going to take forever.”

“Well,” Dean says, roughly. “You better get started. Now.”

Charlie licks her lips.

“Or I’ll set the Alpha on you.”

“Don’t joke about that,” Cas snaps. He’s been enjoying having Charlie and Kevin in the hot seat. Just the word _Alpha_ seems to raise hackles in this room. But Dean doesn’t seem to have heard him. Dean is unraveling threads somewhere in his mind. Homing in on a stubborn knot.

Cas is never comfortable feeling fear. Something has taken the air from his lungs. The image of those meatfactories looms over him, and the shadow is swallowing him down. Cas thinks of every half-whispered conspiracy theory he’s ever heard. Every wrong thought he’s ever had.

In the Sphere, no space is wasted.

 

 

 

 

Nights in the City are brighter than day. Every neon line glows stark against the dark. Architecture and advertisement intertwine, spiraling to the ceiling.

Nights in the Meatgarden, on the other hand, are less than a faded reflection of the City. A lone car scrapes by every so often. The humming of the drones sounds louder out here. Cas looks at the shadowed ruin of his old apartment building, and when Claire reaches for his wrist he doesn’t bother to shake her off.

"Did you call Nicole?" he whispers, and Claire nods.

They're a small party - Dean and Cas, Claire and Dev. Charlie and Kevin are inaccessible, as deep in the intranet as they are, but Sam is only a sig-stick away.

The meatfactories are invisible at night. Simple, idiot monoliths. Only the broken lines running down the sides signify that once, these buildings were as lit up as any of the Sphere. Standing before the dark shape, Cas learns what Dean meant by smelling funny. The buildings fucking stink.

All Cas wants to do is retch, but there's a boarded-up window for him to smash. They should've listened to Charlie, he thinks, and then he slams his fist through thin aluminum.

The smell is a hundred times worse. Something rotting and wrong. Something from Below.

Dean notices his hesitation.

"Cas? You doing all right?"

"I'm not going in there."

"You can wait here, then."

He can barely see Dean in the darkness, but just the words ignite some horrible purpose inside Cas. If Dean is going in there -

Well.

Cas has no choice but to follow.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's time to add NSFW tags.

“I’m going home,” Claire says, and no one moves to stop her. She wavers down the street, walking as if the ground is just about to give way beneath her feet.

Dean is still retching, one hand pressed to his stomach. As if he can puke up every piece of food he’s ever eaten in his life. At Castiel’s side, Dev is pressed in on herself.

The dronecopters swirl overhead, watching their own private world. Below, Cas touches cold steel to his stump. The pain is distant but still there. Cas stretches out his legs. His mind is up there with the dronecopters. Higher than that. In the Station, the Alphas will be waking up soon. The morning meal is always the biggest. High protein, high carbs. In the City, too, people will be waking up. Checking their maker’s storage. Adding a cube of jelly or two. Eating breakfast as they always have.

His stump is scarred and cold. Cas remembers seeing a finger segment between Raphael’s teeth. The blood coating his face, the sick gnashing of flesh between teeth. In hindsight, it's almost hilarious. “The Sphere is a closed system.” The words come out slow and liquid. Above, the night is fading to blue.

“I fucking know that.” Dean spits and retches again.

“We cannot afford to waste neither space nor energy.”

“Shut up.”

“I ate a pizza at Charlie's place.” It sounds like a dream. “She made it. She had her own unit.”

Everything was recorded on comtabs, of course. Cas wants to watch the reels again. Just to double-check. See the bodies moving along. The gleaming hydraulic press, the massive silvery sieves. The fluid was red and black, at first, and it smelled like death.

That musky scent of _rot_  was foreign in the Sphere. There was never room for the dead. Cas supposes he always assumed the dead were thrown Below like the rest of the waste. But organic bodies - the full spectrum of DNA - that was something precious. As precious as an Alpha’s sperm or an Omega’s ovum.

Cas remembers the grey hairs at the Commander’s jawline. How he’d never seen anything like that before, and wouldn't see it again till he moved to the City. Neither Alpha or Omega had reason to live past reproductive age.

The Elites had known the whole time.

The chicken at the inauguration. The gardens of the Courts. And the three air-plants back in Castiel’s old apartment. Thin, stringy leaves. Probably inedible. But up there…

It all makes perfect fucking crystal sense. A laugh tears out of his lungs, harsh enough to leave him coughing.

Dev could be laughing with him. Or else she’s weeping.

In the darkness Dean’s face could be anything. He turns his back to them. Yanks on the sig-stick at his cheek, mutters, and then Dean’s big black car comes curving through the night, the headlights dimmed.

Sam’s face is green. It’s only the lights on the dashboard, but the sight nearly paralyzes Castiel. The green cubes of jelly had been the final product. Something Cas would toss in a maker unit without a second thought.

Dean’s face is closed, now. The way he’s sucking in his cheeks makes him look gaunt.

Starvation isn’t the answer. The decision slides in immediately. Cas doesn’t have the room to be sickened by the truth. Not when he - when everyone alive is all equally complicit.

The Sphere is a closed system. A self-sustaining structure. Life feeds on life.

“We aren’t telling anyone,” Cas says, and Dean makes a choking sound. “We can’t.”

There’s a dried streak of vomit running from Dev’s lip. She scrubs at it with the heel of her hand. “I think - I think that’s for the best.”

Sam says nothing, but Dean’s silence is loud.

So they drive. They park. Dean walks to the edge of the catwalk and sits down with his legs dangling over the City. Cas doesn’t linger. Doesn’t look at the hunched outline of his shoulders.

Inside, Charlie is already unplugged and on the couch. Her hair is released from the usual bun, crimped and curling around her shoulders, and the maker unit from the kitchen is sitting in her lap.

 

 

One of the first things Charlie learned was this: Morality is a luxury for the ignorant. Mythology is the opiate of the masses.

Knowledge is power.

If all had power, the Sphere would dissolve into chaos. The Sphere is a closed system. The Sphere had been a closed system for centuries. Humanity should have died long ago, but it kept going - only by the absolute strictest control of power. By carefully controlling reproduction. By repurposing the dead.

Life advances. Science advances. To what purpose, Charlie can't say.

But the Sphere is still closed.

It takes a certain type of Beta to handle this reality. Charlie was a certain type of Beta, but she looked beyond the schools of the Courts. She looked at the drugged Alphas and thought of a new way. She looked at the City for the first time. She met the Omegas Underground. Dean, and his unending thirst to know. He should’ve been an Elite, she thought.

They all could have been Elites. There was a cold and terrible light they had never seen. Charlie could be their screen. Let just enough in.

“I choose to live,” Charlie says. “And you will all do the same.”

Cas stares at the maker unit and remembers a pizza.

“Anyone hungry?” Charlie asks, and the laughter swoops up from Castiel’s lungs again.

Dev looks at the maker unit between a fence of her fingers. “I could use some tea,” she says, thinly, and moves to the CF machine.

“You just gave birth. You need calories.” Charlie taps on the unit.

“I had some soup.”

Cas thinks about protein and fats and carbohydrates. Nutritional education at the Station was perversely thorough. Kneeling in front of Charlie, he taps at the machine. Something with B-vitamins. Roasted organ meat with onions. The maker says it’s beef liver, and in the preview image, it very well could be. But there are no cows on the Sphere. Maybe in the gardens of the Courts; not down here.

It occurs to Castiel that he’s definitely eaten some of his own children before. The thought simply drifts by like a blinded dronecopter, faraway and stumbling.

When the plate drops, Charlie tears back the film. It looks like a thousand meals he’s eaten before.

Cas takes a bite. Chews. Feels the juices run down his throat. His swallow is garbled, as if his body is trying to reject the food, but it tastes exactly the same as it ever did.

Dev comes out the the bathroom looking dead. Cas holds up a dangling piece of onion. “You look hungry,” he says.

“I hate having to piss after the Birthing,” she says. “It hurts like hell. Sorry if it smells like blood in the bathroom, but…”

“You should eat.”

“Eat something. Yeah.”

The onion waggles in her direction. Dev smiles without her eyes. She takes the onion and regards it for a long minute. When she puts in her mouth, Cas shivers involuntarily.

This, or starvation.

Dean comes in like the Rains. Stomps to the stairs, pauses. There’s a moment where Cas could approach him, but it ends when he looks at the maker unit in Charlie’s lap. Cas calls his name, and Dean shudders. If he goes down - if he takes one more step -

“Dean,” Cas says again.

“You're eating.” Dean says it like a curse.

“Do you choose to starve?”

Eyes bright, Dean looks at their little tableau. Jerks his head to the side, nods at Cas in a silent command. When Cas follows him, Dean leads him halfway down the stairs, down a darkened hall, and into a small room.

The light flickers on, illuminating a small bedroom lacking any personal effects or scents. The bed is neatly made. Dean perches on the edge. He looks miserable beneath the swaying yellow lightbulb. "I don't know how you can do that."

Cas isn't supposed to be alone with Dean. Sometimes Cas doesn't feel like he's even supposed to exist, though, so that's fine. Dean seems to need something. It's all written in the awkward curl of his fingers, in the way he's too nervous too glance up at Cas. "You mean eat?"

"Yeah." Dean shivers.

"I don't know. I can't think about that. Everything about my existence has always been _wrong_. But I - I still want to live, I guess."

"Yeah, okay. It's some circle of life bullshit? Or are you just too nihilistic to give a damn?"

"I've been eating food since I was made. I don't know what else to do."

 Dean rubs his palms on the cot. “Don't see the - doesn't it fuck you up inside?"

"Of course it does," Cas snorts. But at this point, what's left for me lose? No - that's - what I mean is, I've come this far. You've come this far. So what else is there to do but keep going?"

"So you choose cannibalism."

"Survival is not a matter of choice." It comes out harsher than Cas means. Dean sighs, folds up his legs on top of the cot.

"Guess that's just life in the Sphere for ya.”

Cas just nods. His back is against the door, he's ready to leave.

“I just don't know how I'll ever sleep again,” Dean admits.

There it is. The broken look on his face - Cas can fix it. He has to try, at least. So he sits down by Dean, trying to hold himself in a way that isn't horribly uncomfortable for both of them. "Facts don't change, Dean. No matter how much I wish they would. I'm not trying to be callous. I just want you to take care of yourself.”

“If we could break into the Courts -”

“And what? Even if we got away with it, we'd still be hoarding real food from everyone else. That seems the antithesis of your mission.”

“I know,” Dean says, miserable. “But knowing doesn't stop me from wanting.”

Their knees bump on the thin cot. Cas longs for the right words. The neat blanket crumples beneath his fingers. “I wish we had never gone there.”

“I wish I could destroy the entire Sphere sometimes. Cast us all out into space. Like, okay, humanity, you fucked up. You're done.”

“You don't want that.”

“No.” Dean sighs. “Dammit - I just want - I miss Below. I miss Earth. And I don't even know what the hell I'm missing. Do you ever wonder, Cas? What would it be like to be natural?” Dean looks at him with wide eyes gone red at the edges, and Castiel’s heart claws up his throat.

“All the time.”

“Could you imagine? If we met, down Below?“

“Dean,” Cas says painfully, and then Dean's lips are at his ear. Fuck, but he smells good. Just like he always does. Cas involuntarily licks his own lips. It's easy. He already knows exactly how easy it is.

“Let’s just - for once in our freakin’ lives, can we just pretend like -”

There’s something tight in Castiel’s chest. When he turns his head, Dean’s mouth is right there. Waiting for him. Cas kisses him once, and the familiar feeling of rightness blooms. His hands could burn Dean with a touch, but Dean is the one reaching for them.

Just for once. Dean’s mouth glides down his neck, and it doesn’t make sense, how the sensation runs down his spine. Cas noses his hair, inhales the musty scent of Dean.

This is natural.

Tightening fingers in Dean’s hair, Cas draws him back to look in his eyes. They're hazy with lust, and his lips are slick. “It’s okay,” Dean whispers.

“Is it?”

“Yeah, Cas. We’re okay. We’re good.”

“Oh,” says Cas, bemused by the simplicity. “That’s good. Good for us.”

Dean chuckles against his lips, pulls him in again.

There’s a moment when Cas realizes that Dean has done this before. So he lets Dean lead the way. Shirts come off, first. When Dean runs a hand up his chest Cas notices how much smaller Dean is, how the rough tips of his fingers scrape his skin. How Dean likes to punctuate each touch with another kiss.

“We can do whatever you like,” Dean tells him. “If you want me to stop -”

“Don’t.”

“Just tell me,” Dean continues. “Can I -?”

And there it is. Cas is hard and sober. No rut drugs. No sweat dripping in his eyes. All natural, and somehow more thrilling than whatever the old drugs were supposed to be. Blood swells between his legs, in his head, and his ears are warm. When Dean wraps around him - when they're finally naked - it's perfect.

The smell of slick is tantalizing. Cas presses at Dean’s belly, loving the soft push of it, and Dean takes the hint. He lies back, lifts his knees, and now the smell is the final piece of this whole puzzle. On his knees before the bed, Cas laps at Dean’s rim and savors the full spectrum of arousal. There's something pure about the flavor, like nothing Cas has ever tasted. Above him Dean tenses and moans. The more Cas licks at him, the deeper he probes his tongue, the quicker Dean’s breaths get. The more insistent his own erection grows. The more slick drips down his jaw.

This is how it should be. This is how it always should’ve been.

Cas presses a thumb to Dean’s rim, probing inside, and Dean gasps his name. So that feels good for him. He could try another finger, but a better idea occurs. Dragging his stump through a mess of slick, Cas nudges at his entrance. It seems too big, but after the attention of his tongue there’s enough slick to lube the way. Cas uses the fingers on his good hand to stretch Dean, further. The sensitive skin on his stump is tingling with heat, shocking his body. He never realized it could feel good, but Dean is showing him so many new things.

“Fuck,” Dean says, rearing up on his elbows. His face is flushed and gorgeous. “Fuck, Cas.” Then he’s leaning forward, grabbing Cas for a kiss, licking at his own slick on Castiel’s jaw. “Can I - I wanna ride you.”

The word _ride_ confuses Castiel for a moment. And then he realizes exactly what Dean means - that he has to lie flat on the bed, and let Dean take control.

Dean goes carefully, probing his entrance with Cas’s cock before sliding just an inch inside. Immediately Cas seizes his hips, because _fuck_. All he wants to do is thrust, but. Dean is in charge.

It’s agonizing, watching Dean slowly slide down on his cock. Then, when he’s fully seated and the tight heat is driving Cas insane, he moves.

Cas hisses, and Dean chokes on a moan.

He’s picking up the pace, thighs clenching around Castiel’s hips. Cas says his name, and Dean seems to like it. So he says it again, and again, until he’s got Dean falling over him, raising his hips just so he can lean down and fuck Castiel’s mouth with his tongue.

“Goddamn, Cas,” he pants. “So fucking - Cas, fuck, honey.”

Cas is delirious on Dean, higher than he’s ever been. There’s no way he isn’t spending the rest of his life with Dean on his cock. Dean trembles around him, pauses. One hand lands on his chest, and Dean smiles down at him. 

For no real reason, Cas starts to feel sick.

Nothing about this is natural, after all.

"It's not you," Cas says when Dean pulls off of him. "It's not - I'm just -"

"Shit. Shit, Cas. I'm sorry."

"You didn't do anything wrong."

Dean curls up beside him on the bed, but Cas can barely stand to look at him. "Yeah, I did. I thought - and I forgot - I don't have your. Your whole thing."

Associations. Memories. Even without his old eye, it's - it's weird. "It's fine. You were perfect. But I - I can't do this, Dean. I can't pretend."

Cas lets Dean put one arm around his shoulders because he's a horrible person. The wrenching wrongness in his gut freezes, shatters. "I'm sorry," Dean says again, and then Cas just needs to turn away. Putting his bare feet on the floor, he sees his pants lying down on the floor. The smell of slick is sharp, now, with a lingering bitterness.

“Cas?”

Behind his back, Dean must look flushed and miserable and lost. All Cas sees are his damn pants. He can’t see his shoes. He might have left them upstairs, for all he knows. That’s fine. There’s another way out of the headquarters, wherever the hell Charlie likes to park her car, and Cas will go fucking barefoot because he can’t let anyone else see him right now. Certainly not any of the Omegas upstairs.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.” Cas tugs on his loose sweatpants. The waistband is easiest to pull up one-handed. He’s getting better and better at working one-handed every day. There are his boots, tossed in the corner.

“What do you mean, home?”

“My apartment, Dean.”

“I said you could stay here. Cas, you don’t have to - “

“Oh, I think I do.”

“Don't let me - Cas, this is my fault. I'll leave, if you want.”

Now Cas is actually annoyed. He looks over his shoulder and lets his frustration show. “Dean, you said it yourself. You just wanted to pretend, for a moment. I can't do that. I have to live here. In reality.” He has to lace his boots. The laces fall all over themselves. One hand isn't enough. Now he’s just got a damn knot he can’t undo. Well, he was ready to go barefoot anyways. “Now I go back to my place, and I try to sleep without - without thinking about you. And then I wake up and I’m gonna be hungry and I’m gonna have to - I dunno, buy some fucking slip-on shoes because I can’t do this right now, and then I'm going to get annoyed and give up and eat a giant fucking steak.”

“Damn it, Cas.” There’s something nasty tugging at Dean’s laugh. He splays his fingers across his face, pushing on his forehead as if he’s got a headache.

"I'll be back tomorrow. For your interview and stuff. We still need to do that. Just - in the morning."

“Yeah. Sure. You're right, I guess. Thanks, Cas.”

“You’re welcome.” Cas is dressed, now. He doesn’t turn around, just makes his way down the blackened hallway.

Behind him a loud swear echoes and a door slams shut.

By the time Cas is outside, the sweat has cooled on his skin. The lights of the Sphere are slowly dawning, tinting the steel skies pink. Cas makes his way down the catwalks, shivering.

The streets of the City are still just beginning to glow. Shops are beginning to open. A few early risers wander, nACHR wisping in their trail. Cas has never walked this way on foot. He wonders at the holoscreens just beginning to flicker on. Headlines he can’t read begin their slow scroll. When the Rains come, soft in the morning, Cas holds his coat over his head.

He follows the flow of the canals and drains till the meatfactories loom at the horizon. In this light, they look freshly-scrubbed and glowing.

Cas looks away. 

By the time he’s back at the apartment the lights are nearly at full power. Claire is sitting in front of her mother’s door. She says nothing to Castiel, and he says nothing to her. But he can smell her hunger, and he’s pretty sure she can smell his - the _Dean_ all over him, sinking beneath his skin.

There’s not much in his apartment but the cot on the floor, the maker unit, and the airplants. Three arranged on top of the maker unit’s cabinet. Whimsical, but Cas had liked how they draped over the edge. It had seemed a good place for them. He’d never really considered decorating before. It took him a long time to decide where to put them.

Cas carefully collects the plants off his maker unit and cradles them in his hand.

The window is still open, rain pattering the sill. Lying back on his cot, Cas holds his plants, and watches the Rains. The steady sound reverbs, taking over his thoughts, until he can finally sleep.

The dreams are horrible - well, no. They're perfect.

But when Cas awakes shuddering in shame, and all he can think is _Dean_ and _Omega_ , he dreads falling asleep again. He can’t take his sedatives. For some reason, the last thing Cas wants to do is the world is taking the sedatives.

He is awake. He is present. His mind has soared from racing to nothing, nothing but pure white and some raw emotion he can’t begin to name.

It felt right, until it didn't.

Now it feels - it feels - Perverse. Flawless. The way Dean had just opened for him. The way he’d felt on top of him. The way he’d told Cas to stay, the look in his eyes when Cas had suddenly gone soft inside of him. So Cas had to take control of the situation. End it before it got out of hand. It was the right thing to do.

As the skies brighten, the Sphere loses the fragility of morning. Steel lines turn solid, the mist of the Rains fades. The walls gleam, now, and the heat of the Sphere drags sweaty lines down Castiel’s skin.

The day passes in a haze of fitful sleep, waking dreams, and the ebb and flow of the Rains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all this is the most explicit scene i've ever posted and, of course, it is A Heavy One. So any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A word about the previous chapter: the people on the recent-amputee and prosthetic forums were very winky-winky about sex. I guess it's sensitive. And i thought it would be a nice thing for Cas to have something other than phantom pain. No, no one's said anything to me about that one bit in the previous chapter but I just felt the need to clarify a bit?

Cas wakes to the sound of raucous laughter. His neighbor on the left is always loud, but this time he isn’t ranting. Peeking out into the hall, Cas frowns at the open door. Casey is chuckling, now, seated on his own bed with a holofilm in his lap.

“I told you, man. I told everybody!”

“Told me what?”

Casey holds up the holofilm, displaying letters Cas can’t read. “Check it! Maker jelly is people! I fuckin’ called that years ago!” 

“Fuck,” Cas says, and bolts back to his room. 

“I ain’t crazy! I told you all!” his neighbor calls, but Cas is already ready to go. He’s out the door, running at first, then slowing to a slow and dumbfounded walk.

It’s all over every billboard and adscreen. Running signs above random shops have been hacked - and while Cas may not be able to read yet, he sees the same repetition of letters. The truth is blared out at every corner, on every eyescreen.

Some people are laughing. Some people are freaking out. A few maker units crash out of windows to splatter on the street. But the majority walk past the headlines nonplussed. They might squint, frown, but they shake their heads. 

It could just be a dumb prank. 

Maker jelly is people. Everyone knows someone who told them that once. It’s the kind of rumor one might hear six hours and six drinks after dark. A running joke. Finding a newstand, Cas snatches a film without paying. It’s all there - graphic footage of the birthing, the meatfactories. There’s a whole diagram of the life cycle. All of the words are red and lurid, and the cycle loops, endlessly. Splurting fluids and hastily grown organs. Cubes of jelly finally plop onto a conveyor belt. Cas stares dumbly at the images, and then the Rains pelt down with enough force to nearly crack the film. 

The stench of fluoride is enough to choke him. 

Cas ducks into a CF shop to wait it out, but the Rains go for an entire hour. Inside are more people with more films. They stare at the Rains and sip their CF. The splashy images are ignored. One woman simply shuts her screen off. Cas accidentally makes eye contact with her.

“This isn’t real,” she says, slowly. “Nothing in the Sphere is real.” 

There’s nothing to say to that.

When the Rains finally end, Cas wanders in the cloying fumes of fluoride choking the City. Every ad-screen is shut off, silence and darkness cloaking the streets. Then, with a flicker, they all turn back on. All blaring the same words on the film. So it’s a work in progress, then. The battle continues, screens on, screens off. One particularly large grid perched over a clothing store starts shivering static before ultimately freezing purple. The Elite insignia flickers. 

The air plants sit tucked inside Castiel’s coat like a secret. It was just a last minute thing, really. Cas is being stupid. Stupider than he was last night, but not as stupid as someone else is being right this very moment. 

Standing outside the door to the Omegas Underground headquarters, he takes a quick peek at them. They’re still there, still green. So all there’s left to do is knock.

Before he can hesitate, the Rains open up again. No one in the City will be taking showers today, it seems.

Dev opens the door. Not Dean. When Cas tries to look over her shoulder she stands on her toes to block him. “You part of the extraction team?”

“Extraction team?”

“I’m sorry, have you been outside?”

“Um. Yeah.”

“Fucking Dean locked himself up with Gutenburg 95. He even got Kevin in on it. And now they’re just - they've been shouting all morning, it's hell. Whatever, just get the fuck inside before that fluoride turns your brain to mush.” 

On the couch, Judah and Adam are fiddling around with some strange robotic parts and wires. Judah yanks on a wire, grimacing. Neither of them seem particularly concerned, but the room also reeks of TetraCan. 

“Can we get you anything? Glass of water?” Adam sneers. “Oh, whoops. Sorry. It’s all fluoride now.”

“Even the drinking water?”

“Of course it is. I forget you Alphas aren’t known for brains.”

Maybe Cas should just leave. But - the plants. He has to give them to Dean. Or he can just drop them off and mumble out a quick message. He ducks his head, tries to keep a low profile. Of course, only the Omegas are upstairs right now.

“Adam,” Judah chastises. “Sorry, Castiel. Would you please come here so I may take your measurements.”

Cas blinks. Looks up. “My...what?” 

“The stump, please.”

Bemused, Cas volunteers his arm. There’s a curious assemblage on Judah’s lap. Picking up a pen, he flashes a grid across Castiel’s stump, taps something into his comtab. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Your arm.”

“Huh?”

“Your new hand. Dean said you’d be needing it. Right before he lost his mind.”

“I don’t need it. See, I even got new shoes.” Cas did indeed find a new pair of shoes. They’re slip-ons, with a sturdy strap around the heel and a ventilated but closed toe. Cas chose the bright orange pair because they made him smile, but Judah looks down at his shoes as if they’re causing him physical pain. 

“I suppose it is your body,” Judah says somewhat regretfully. “Let me toss this into the disintegrator, then.” 

“So this was all Dean’s idea?”

“Yes. This and - well. You’ve seen.” 

“He’s fucked in the head,” Adam says viciously. “What was it like out there? Is it chaos? Are people eating each other alive in the streets?”

“No.” Cocking his head, Cas hears the distant sound of shouting. “Is everyone else - ?”

“Yep.” Dev crosses her arms. “They’re still trying to keep those fucking screens hacked. While everyone else of, you know, sound mind is trying to get them to stop so we can have normal fucking water to drink again. So. If you wanna join that party.”

“I really need to see Dean.”

She snorts, twirling a nACHR tube. “Good luck.”

Downstairs, a sealed door blocks the entrance to the hub. Charlie is on the floor, Sam is running his hands through his hair, and they look like they've just run a full circuit of the Sphere. 

Sam glares at Cas. “What did he say to you last night? You were the last one that talked to him. Before he grabbed Kev and went on a goddamn hacking spree.”

“Not much. He was just stressed out about the whole… “

“Soylent green?” Charlie asks.

“What?”

“Nevermind.” 

“The whole - the whole maker jelly thing. And then,” Cas pauses, trying to find a good ending for the lie. “He just said something about preparing interview questions for me. And I went home. That's all I know.”

“He’s good at that,” Sam says. “Everything's fine, and then, boom. Explosion. This bullshit. And then he won't open! the! goddamn! door!” Sam punctuates with a fist. “Kevin! Are you alive in there?”

Distant voices sound like they're arguing. Whispers draw closer to the door. There’s a smooth click, and Kevin peeks out. 

“Can you guys just stop? Dean isn't- Dean isn't exactly -”

“Is he drunk?” Sam asks.

Kevin focuses on Cas. “You. What the hell happened last night?”

“Nothing! Why did you help him with this?”

“He was gonna do it anyways. Figured I might as well keep him safe. Ukki wanted to do something fun for once, I wasn't finna stop him.”

"Close the damn door!" Dean shouts from within. "Unless they're gonna help, they can fuck off!" 

"Cas is here!" Kevin hollers without bothering to turn around.

"I said, close the god damn door!" 

Kevin grimaces. His fingers make a pathetically apologetic wave before he complies.

"And that's what we've been dealing with all day," Charlie says. "What do you got there, Cas? Are those... airplants?"

Sighing, Cas sits down besides her. "Yeah. I don't know. I thought - I thought Dean would like them."

"How the hell did you get something like that? You know - the only place where plants grow is in the Court gardens."

"You've never seen those, Charlie?" Sam asks, curiously. He picks up one of the smallest plants with hands that could crush it instantly, but he cradles it like something precious.

"Of course I've seen them. But the Kloss Courts - the sphere gardens. That's literally the only place where plants can grow here. I mean, where did you think the Elites were getting their food?" Lifting her cupped hand, she peers at the thin leaves. "Cas. This looks legit! You know what - DEAN!" 

A grumble, stomping feet. The door does not open. 

"I'm serious, Dean! You gotta see what Cas has!" Grinning, she strokes the plant. "This is fuckin' awesome. Whoever you got this from? Find them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little sleep deprived and I have a new puppy keeping me busy. I love your comments. If you can believe it this story is halfway done!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> punching myself in the face trying to finish this wip before i get completely involved in other ... um... projects, i guess :) i've considered dropping this story a few times but man i'm close to the end i can feel it i just

Dean opens the door sweaty to Charlie's pounding. Dark circles under his eyes like he hasn’t slept since Cas last saw him. “I don't care, and I’m keeping this going. For twenty-four hours, at the very least.”

“Why?” Sam huffs. “Are you trying to drown the City in fluoride? Are you trying to bring the entire fucking Sphere down on our heads?” 

“You know, what, Sam, I don’t even have to - I’m not even trying to - look. Maybe I just don’t give a single fuck anymore. And I’m sick of being shut up by the Elites and I’m sick of - I don’t know, fucking cannibalism. The headlines stay.”

A nest of cables starts slithering. Something squawks, and the lights go out.

“Charlie!” Kevin wails.

“Charlie!” Dean shouts. One of the sigsticks stuck in his ear crackles. He whips it out, glares. 

“Sorry, bud, but I’m pulling the plug on this.” Charlie plugs the surge protector back in - minus a few key cords. The lights flicker on, a few monitors slowly boot to life. “Listen to me, Dean. Wait. First. Look at this.” 

She holds out a plant and Dean just blinks down at it. “So what?”

“You guys don’t even have real TetraCan down here. But somehow Cas has these.”

“They’re just - I see those, sometimes. It’s just a scam. Probably made out of the same shit everything else is down here.”

“Dean. This is real. This is from up top. This? Is from the Kloss spheres.”

“Why the fuck am I supposed to care about this plant? What the fuck is a Kloss sphere?” 

Cas cringes a little. Those plants - he was supposed to give them to Dean, somewhere alone. And maybe he would apologize, and maybe they would - they would - 

Something would happen. Something good. Because maybe good things can still happen. Cas tucks the last plant back in his pocket. 

“The Kloss spheres,” Charlie says, “are where the Elites get their food. Real, fresh food. If someone even has access to the technology down here? That’s insane. You want to change the game down here, Dean? This is where you can start. I know it’s just a tiny plant, Dean, but this is huge.”

Dean stares down at the plant. Reaches for one of the spindly little leaves, rubs it between his fingers. “Can we eat this?”

“Not this. This is just a start.”

“Fine.” Sighing, Dean looks back at the wasteland of cables and blank monitors, then back down at the plant. “So. Tell me about these Kloss spheres.”

Of course the Elites had their own source of food. Of course the technology existed. As Charlie puts it, plants existed on Earth even without human intervention for billions of years. All Cas has is vague memories of green blurs passing by on his rare trips to the Courts, but Charlie has stories of lush jungles, plants of every kind growing tall and sprinklers passing by overhead. 

“So basically,” Charlie says, holding a plant up to a rapt audience, “whether we can grow our own food or not down here, someone has access. We just need to track them down and make them tell us how.”

“You know,” Kevin says, “I don’t really get out much. Got my head in the net all the time, if you know what I mean. Pretty much no one outside here has seen me around.”

“You still got your old ID?”

Kevin grins. “Of course.”

 

It takes time, of course. The holograms around the City are replaced with standard advertising. The flood of chlorine abates a bit. Slowly the streets repopulate, and the City falls back into its usual bustling pace. From there, it’s a simple matter of hacking into the dronecopters, splicing up a feed, and checking carefully for the color green. There’s more than one person selling the air plants, but they never seem to meet up together or follow any particular pattern. Sam tracks one to his pod block and reports nothing interesting but a shelf full of plants. No Kloss sphere. 

They send in Kevin anyways. The kid looks different suited up like an Elite. Hair cut sharp, clothes neat, head clean of any hacked-up tech. 

Cas watches the live feed from the front seat of Dean's car, Charlie and Dev leaning over his shoulders while Dean sits at the wheel. Maybe that's why Cas is sweaty - there's just too many people in here. 

“Sir?” Kevin's voice comes crackling. He whips something out of a pocket. On the feed, the purple hologram of his Elite identification glows across Cas’s face. “We have reason to believe someone in this building is selling contraband. Do you mind if I have a look around?”

“Shit,” the guy says. “Contraband? What, you mean this? Cause if Naomi has a problem, she sure as shit ain't let me know about it. “

“Naomi?”

The guy chuckles. “Drop the act, buddy. Don't tell me you don't know who Naomi Kloss is. I got my receipts and my shit checks out. Now the get the hell outta my pod.”

The door slams.

Kevin taps his mic, speaks directly into his feed.

“Guys? What the fuck. The only Naomi I know sure as hell isn’t a Kloss.”

“You mean Naomi Waters?” Cas asks. 

“Who? No, it’s Naomi Tran.”

“Naomi Waters was my escort down here. I had a direct line to her on my old comtab.”

“Who the hell is Naomi?” Dean asks, but Cas ignores him.

“Elites don't share names,” Kevin hisses. “We actually keep track of that up in the Courts. I know Naomi. She’s the one who sent me down here in the first place.”

“There's only one Naomi,” Charlie says. “That's Naomi Bradbury. Head of my school. She’s the one who sent me down here. There's no Naomi at Waters, or at Tran.”

“Find her profile,” Kevin says. “Go and look at all the heads of the schools. Naomi Tran.”

“Alright, alright,” Charlie snaps, digging through her comtab. “I'll just look - wait a second. Ok, let's try a different database. Aaand… no, not there either. Um. That can’t be. I’ve got access to every Court database, even the Station’s files, that doesn’t make sense. But according to this, she doesn’t exist.”

“I've seen her,” Cas says. “Blue eyes. Brown hair, tied back. Grey suit.”

“Annoying heels?” Kevin asks.

“A few greys,” Charlie muses. “She's older.”

“Yeah.”

“You met her at Central Intelligence.”

“The long halls.”

“Shit, guys,” Kevin says. “We’re talking about the same damn woman.”

“She must have a seat in every school,” Charlie says. “Maybe, if I dig a little deeper into some of the admin folders, I can - “

“No,” Cas snaps. “No more hacking. We need to reach the Courts. Charlie, could you go up the elevator again? Maybe - say you’re turning in a rogue Alpha,” Cas says. “You can sedate me - “

“They’d kill him,” Dean cuts in. “No. You’re not taking him back up there. You’re taking me.”

“You?” Of course Dean is only going to talk about Cas - not to him. “Dean, you’re an anonymous Omega. You would never be allowed into the Courts.”

“I’m defective,” Dean says. “I need to see the doctors up there. See if they can do anything to make me a functioning member of the Sphere.” 

“But I’m going there,” Cas says. “If anything happens -”

“Whoa - guys!” Charlie holds up a hand. “Are you kidding me? If anyone it should be more or Kevin.”

“You’ll get arrested immediately. No. Naomi was looking for me - specifically. I can tell her - I can tell her I got confused. That I want to come home, to the Station.”

Dean grabs his arm, not minding Cas’s flinch. “Cas. You really want to go back there? Thought they were gonna kill you.”

“I have no intention of ending up as maker jelly.” 

Charlie crosses her arms, looking pissed. “But what are you trying to do? What’s the point? If this Naomi is the one responsible, what the hell can we do?”

“What the hell would we do anyways?” Cas tugs away from Dean’s grasp. “Look at us. Look at the City. Look at all of yourselves,” he says, gesturing in the tiny confines of the car. “What have you guys been achieving here? Fighting for equality against - against a monolith? You can livestream all you guys want, and what does it get us? Fluoride floods. Maybe I just - I just want answers. You guys can back me up on this or not. I’m done.”

Dean winces, away. Heavy silence settles in the car, and Cas takes in a breath. He’s angry, he can feel it. He needs his sedatives. He still needs his goddamn Alpha sedatives. 

“We can back you up,” a quiet voice speaks. Dev doesn’t even look up from her comtab. “Come on, guys. We can stream the whole damn thing and maybe - maybe Cas is right and we’re just wasting our lives. But if that’s the case, then. What the hell. I want answers, too.”

Dean claps his hands together. Looks like he’s about to say something, then gives up. He sends Kevin a quick message before tapping out of the feed, then swings the car around in the air and zips back towards the hub. No one says a word, but the silence lies thick on Cas’s tongue. 

All he wants is - 

To see Naomi. Face to face. 

And then what? 

The whole drive back, Cas doesn’t find an answer. Certainly not in the clashing colors of the billboards, all replaced with safe propaganda. Certainly not with Dean’s scent still so close. 

Cas watches Alpha silhouettes posture in advertisement for GoBits and wonders what’s happening on the Station. If Uriel is keeping up his diet plan. If Balthazar is still the laziest copilot ever, if Anael is still picking fights in the gymnasium. 

None of them know what’s being served in the cafeteria. None of them have any idea. 

If whatever revolution the Omegas Underground wants doesn’t include them, it’s already pointless. Dean can broadcast all over the City, but he can’t broadcast up there.

Maybe Cas could go back to the Station. Maybe. And then he’d just get drugged up again, and then he’d just be back in the Alpha cycle. Unless, of course, he ended up in a maker unit. 

Dean slows to a hover over the hub’s pod block. Circles around. Something’s wrong, but Cas isn’t listening. He forces himself back into the present just in time to hear Charlie.

“Where the hell,” she asks, incredulous, “is my freaking car?”


	14. Chapter 14

Charlie’s yellow car is a bright spot on the dronecopter’s feed, drifting around Cas’s old podblock in the Oven. It dips behind the building, and then vanishes. Charlie taps around the hologram displaying various drone views, catches a yellow flash dipping behind another building, heading down. Towards the lowest part of the Sphere, where the drains all flow. 

“Got it,” she says, and picks up a lone dronecopter hovering above the sewers. Cas squints at the feed. Whoever’s driving isn’t very good, awkward and swerving. “I’m gonna call it in.”

“Wait,” Cas says. “Zoom in. I want to see the driver.”

Blonde hair through the driver’s window. Cas hisses.

“Dean? I need to borrow your car. Now.”

“What?” 

“It’s Claire.”

“Claire? Claire Novak?” Dean sounds incredulous. 

Charlie zooms in again. “Wait. That little girl stole my car?” 

“Charlie, just - wait. Give me - give me - let me just find out what’s going on. Dean, the car?”

Dean frowns. “Fine. Let’s go see what’s up there.”

Dean insists on driving. He’s fast, at least, weaving through the blocks and spires of the City, zipping over the Oven before diving straight down, past dirty block windows until he’s coasting over the Drains. Deeper, now, over the channels of garbage, towards the great filters at the bottom of the Sphere. A few signs warn that they’re trespassing, but Dean speeds past them.

“What the hell is she doing down here?” Dean mutters.

“You know what she’s trying to do.”

“She’s - she looks like you, Cas.”

“You figure?”

“Guess I know where she gets it from, now.”

Cas frowns, flexes his hand. His stump is tingling, but it isn’t too bad. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.” Focused on the wheel, Dean squints ahead. Mist is rising from below, clouding the windshield. “Your freaking boner for self-destruction.”

“I don’t have a - a - a boner for anything.”

Dean snorts. “Yeah. Guess I should know by now.”

Cas just swallows. Looks out the window at the walls of the channel rising. 

“I’m sorry,” Dean finally sighs. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“I wanted to apologize to you,” Cas says thinly. “When I came back. With those plants.”

Dean finally gives him a single, wounded look. “Cas…”

“There she is.” And indeed, there she is. Just in time. The bright yellow car is hovering right over the entrance to the Drains. Waiting for them to open. The water siphons off to twin channels on each side, the trash of the City piling up. Dean pulls up to her side, rolls down the window, and Cas leans across the churning waters below. He can just reach the opposite window with his stump.

Claire cringes when she sees him. Her eyes are red and puffy, like she’s been crying since the last time Cas saw her. Some great void inside him swallows half his heart when he sees her. Some stupid biological tugging. 

Cas pounds on the window, and waits for his daughter to roll it down before he yells at her.

“What are you doing, Claire? Are you trying to get arrested?”

“I’m trying,” she grits, “to get out.”

“Out where? Below? That’s just a car, Claire. It’s not a fucking spaceship! You’re gonna turn that around right this second before - before - “

“Before what? The copters catch me? The Elites kill me? Before I get turned into freaking green mush?” Her laugh is more of a sob. “I don’t care. I’m not dying in the Sphere.” 

“Claire!” Cas snaps, trying to find something to say. She really must take after him, somehow. Not half an hour ago Cas was running down the same road. It’s different, though. Claire is just a kid. Cas is an Alpha and he’s sired more kids he’ll probably never meet and he doesn’t matter, not like she does. 

Except he can’t exactly say why. He just looks at Claire’s broken face and thinks, yeah. 

It sounds nice. 

Just one glance at the planet below the Sphere. Just one taste of something outside of it. 

Dean leans heavily over Cas, crushing his belly. “Claire. Please. Just get in the car.”

“I’m not getting in there! I can’t stay another minute in this fucking Sphere. I’ve seen it - I’ve seen what’s down there and I - I can’t - “

Sirens take over her voice, louder even than the sound of water roaring. Cas feels Dean’s gasp against his neck when he turns, and sees the long, elegant ships of the Elites. The Beta sigils on the side. One of them has the mark of the Station.

“Shit,” Dean breathes, grabbing Cas again. “Dammit, Cas. They’re not gonna - “

“No, Dean. They’ve already got us.” 

The sirens scream. Someone shouts through a megaphone. Something about stolen vehicles and trespassing in the Drains, but Cas only looks at Claire’s tears. The dawning terror in Dean’s eyes. He wonders what it’d be like to slowly suffocate in outer space. To fall crashing to the Earth and die in a burst of flame. 

The Elites descend on them, then. Claire is dragged shouting into a car while a copter scans Charlie’s car. Even Dean is taken away, in a burst of shouting and struggling. Cas watches the Station car drift up to the side of Dean’s car. Watches the window roll down, until Chuck is staring at him. Chuck shakes his head, once, slow.

“Castiel.”

“Hello, Commander.”

“Get in the car. It’s over, Cas.”

“Yeah.” Cas sits still until Chuck opens the door. Lets him grab onto the handle and swing up, over the water, up into the back seat. He sits down on smooth red pleather. Stops listening to the sounds outside. 

It’s over.

Chuck glances at him in the rearview. “Your eye…”

“Yeah,” Cas repeats. 

Chuck’s hands dance on the steering wheel, fluttering and awkward. Like he’s almost apologetic or something. “You, uh, heh. Really got yourself into trouble down here, huh?”

All Cas can see now is doors slamming. Cars speeding up and away. 

“Naomi sent me,” Chuck says finally, and then turns up. He hands Cas back some pills. They look like his typical Alpha sedatives. They look like any other drug he's taken. 

The drug hits fast. The car goes up and so does Cas, but he might be drifting above it. The gates of the ceiling unlock, grinding, and Cas floats up through while the Courts spin around him. The Station waits at the top of the Sphere, but instead Chuck turns for the black rectangle that cloaks only the highest curve of the Sphere, where hidden doors slide open and more Elites wait with hypodermic needles. 

Mind wandering, Cas lets hands take him and lead him into the headquarters of the Federation. The same long black halls where it all began. Footsteps echo down the halls while the great insignia of the Beta Federation grows larger, until he's right before the doors and the color purple melts into black.

It isn't quite the last thing Castiel will ever see, at least, because the doors open and Naomi herself looks up at him. Holds out a hand and leads him up a set of stairs, then another. The rest of the entourage drifts off somewhere between one landing and the next, until Naomi pauses before a steel door. 

"I suppose," she says, "you deserve some sort of explanation. At the end of all this."

Naomi unlocks the door, and an office opens up behind. Looking up, Cas sees walls curve into a dome and stretch away, into darkness. Even through the haze of drugs, even though he's never been here in his life, Cas knows this must be the very apex of the Sphere.


	15. Chapter 15

At one end of the room, a gleaming console extends out. Glittering screens and gleaming buttons. The technology looks old, older than anything Cas has ever seen. Not a holo projector in sight. Before the console a few chairs perch on a raised bridge. Naomi seats herself in the largest one, at the very center of the console. 

“Sit, Castiel.”

Cas lowers himself in the nearest chair. A control panel blinks up at him, displaying a flat grid. It reminds him of the training sims back at the Station, but for a much, much larger ship.

Naomi notices the direction of his attention. Smiles, but there’s a disconnect between her eyes and her mouth. For the first time, Cas notices the air plant in her hands.

“Right now,” Naomi says, “your daughter is being held for theft. She’ll be put into reprogramming. I expect by the next Breeding, she’ll finally play her role. Your friend Dean, on the other hand. He’s in for much more. I don’t expect him to ever set foot in the City again. Not with his memories intact, certainly. And the rest of his team, with their illegal publications. They’ll all be caught, eventually. 

“The Sphere is a well-oiled machine, Castiel. It is older than me, older than all of us. It will continue, the same as it ever has. A few slips in the gears aside, it churns on. You, Castiel, are nothing more than a loose screw in the works. No matter what anyone tries, it always ends here.”

Cas blinks. "Is this where you'll terminate me?"

Naomi sighs, long and deep. “No, Castiel. If I could, I would release you and your friends right now.”

That isn't right. For the first time Cas looks her in the eyes, even though his own may be unfocused. "Then, do it."

“I made a mistake with you, Castiel. I allowed myself to have hope that something could change.” She chuckles without any humor. “Taking power only sounds good to those who don't know the burden of it. The truth may be a noble pursuit, but as you and your friends - and even I, I admit - have discovered it only brings misery. This,” she says, sweeping her hand across the console, “is the true despair of the Sphere. This is why, no matter what we try to change, we ultimately fail.”

“You selected me when I was scheduled to be terminated,” Castiel says. “Why? What did you hope to gain by sending me down to the City?”

Naomi plucks a leaf from the air plant, bends it in half. Puts in her mouth and chews, slowly, before making a face. “Needs work.” Taking off another leaf, she holds it out to Castiel. “Try it. This is one of our newest prototypes. Contains a full serving of Vitamin D, 23 grams of carbohydrates, even some protein. But they haven’t really caught on in the City, have they?”

Castiel takes the leaf. Chews. It’s stringy but fleshy at once, catching in his teeth. Something about the flavor makes him a little nauseous.

“Fifty years ago, we considered expanding the Kloss spheres. But air plants take up far less resources. We just don’t have the formula quite down yet. Does it give you hope, Castiel? It gives me hope. And you, too, gave me hope. That maybe we hadn’t completely destroyed the Alphas yet. That maybe one could be returned to society.

“You see, Castiel, I didn’t make the Sphere. I only inherited it. My ancestors were the captains of this ship.”

Cas coughs around the leaf. “Ship?” He looks down at the console again. The grid of lines, the blinking radar blips. 

“The Sphere was never intended to sustain life for as long as it has. I’m sure you’ve heard the horror stories of overpopulation before the Alpha-Omega programs were introduced. This ship was designed to support only a specific amount of people. Controlled breeding is the only way to ensure we never go over the limit. Just enough people to keep society going. To keep our City moving, our scientists working, to perpetuate the continued illusion that the Sphere actually works. And then, should we ever land, to create a viable population. Not that we'll ever land, mind you. That dream has long died.”

Naomi absent-mindedly reaches for a switch. Presses it until it turns green, until, with a great grinding sound, the panels of the dome swivel to reveal a window. 

Nothing but stars. The Earth’s atmosphere curls below, but looking straight across, to where the Earth curves around the horizon - nothing.

“The other migration pods made it to their destination,” Naomi says. “But for us - the first thing to go was our communication systems. Then, our fuel injector systems. We’ve been trapped in orbit ever since.”

Cas looks into the emptiness of space. “What was their destination? A new planet?”

“An Eden, flowing with water and lush with carbon-based life. The last hope for humanity after the nuclear wars destroyed our own planet. And we were left behind. For centuries our top scientists have been working to repair the Sphere, even as our fuel supply dwindled. Now? We’re trying to find a new source of energy. On top of keeping society alive and running, on top of keeping the Sphere functioning. Did you know, Castiel, every time a passing asteroid brushes us, we’re pushed into lower orbit? One day, we may very well crash into the Earth, and all of this will have been for nothing. We've trained Alphas to destroy asteroids, but the truth is, the only battleships we have are ancient exploration pods that we hope - we _hope_ \- could blast apart a meteor.

You know, I’m not even sure when we began recycling human bodies. Must have been during the era of overpopulation. Too many people being born, too many people dying, and not enough resources to go around. Even the Kloss spheres can’t grow enough food to support the City. Even if we did expand them, it would only consume more water and energy than we could afford. I’ve considered lowering the birth rate, but I don’t think we could lower it enough without causing society to entirely collapse. 

The only thing we can do is keep building. Keep studying. Keep advancing until, somehow, we find a way to complete our migration. So we can walk among the rest of humanity as Neanderthals, I suppose. If they're even still alive.”

With the void of space stretching above, Cas is somehow insignificant and vast all at once. “What's a Neanderthal?”

“Doesn't matter. They're dead, along with the rest of Earth.”

Claire said she saw something, below. Hadn't she? Cas can't quite recall.

“Can you see it, from here?”

“Below?” Naomi has a small, indulgent smile. “If you like,” and at the press of the button, the walls swivel. Bars slide across the view, and an odd screen pops up across the windows. It looks like an early prototype of the holograms Castiel is familiar with. "Behold the wasteland," Naomi says, sitting back in her chair.

But Castiel looks, and he sees. It's more than he's ever seen, not even in his strangest dreams, not even in the leaves of his air plants. 

Even Naomi gasps.

There's blue water curling at the edges of a burnt continent. But in the center, still growing, still expanding - 

_Green._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yeah, this was it all along. And again, I punch myself in the face for how long it took me to get here. but there's still some left! the story isn't quite over yet!
> 
> if you're still reading, i appreciate you and i would love to know what you think.


	16. Chapter 16

According to Naomi, the last Earth probe was sent one hundred years ago. Results were inconclusive. No plants were discovered. Certainly not the spreading grassland that has Cas entranced. Efforts, it was concluded, were better spent on achieving the ship’s original flight plan. Rejoining the rest of the Earth’s population.

“Perhaps,” she says, “it’s time for a new round of probes.”

“And then?”

“Scientists. Scouts.” She looks at Castiel, eyes bright. “Humans once lived on the Earth naked, surviving on nothing more than what the land provided. If we could…”

“How long could it take?”

“To re-establish society? To till an untamed planet? Decades. Then again, we were prepared to colonize a new planet. What do you think, Castiel?”

Castiel only stares at the green, imagination running wild.

Naomi sits back, stroking her chin. She dismisses Castiel, and he has to tear his eyes away from the screen. As he leaves, he hears Naomi speaking into a log. 

Castiel is returned unceremoniously to the Station. A new hand is fitted to his stump, but Cas resists the eye. 

“Why not?” the doctor asks.

Cas stares at the eyebot with long tendrils ready to be shoved into his neural networks. “I’m used to this.”

“We have orders,” the doctor says, and slips a needle under his skin. 

Cas awakes with a new eye and a new badge on his jumpsuit. It’s similar to the one on Chuck’s. But Alphas are not commanders. Chuck says nothing to his repeated questions, only hands him a new comtab. Thinner than the last one Cas had. 

“It’s nearly time for dinner,” Chuck says. “But you’ll be eating with me.”

The high table in the cafeteria overlooks the pandemonium below. Cas scans the crowd of Alphas, looking for Uriel’s familiar face. Before him is a plate of greens grown in a Kloss Sphere, strangely bitter but crisp. 

“This,” Chuck says, cutting slices from his plate to lay atop the greens, “is a real chicken breast. There’s still a few populations in the Kloss spheres. Too bad their feed is still made from maker jelly.”

“I don’t understand. Am I an Elite now?”

Chuck shrugs. “You don’t really think we’ll let you run around those Alphas again, do you?”

A fight breaks out below. Alphas stand on the tables, cheering. Food flies through the air and now Cas sees Uriel, breaking a tray over Michael’s head. Laughter erupts amid the roars, and Cas feels cold inside. 

“Which ones would you choose for a mission? Someone at the top of their class, but easily led?”

“Uriel. Anael. Maybe Bal, but he’s headstrong.” 

“The first probes will be unmanned, you see. But depending on the results, we could be sending down teams of scientists pretty soon. And then? Who knows.”

Tapping his comtab, Cas sees words he cannot read. Only a few pictograms can guide him. Pushing it away, he tastes the chicken. Tough and gamy.

After dinner, Chuck leads him down to a garage at the base of the Station, to a car, and leads him over the Courts.

For the first time Cas sees the Kloss spheres in detail, gleaming green and ovaloid, interspersed amongst the great block buildings of the schools. Chuck points out the schools as they fly over. The great black facades all look identical to Castiel, but he sees the Bradbury school and tries to imagine Charlie growing up inside the featureless cube.

“Over there,” Chuck says, pointing. “That’s Zedong. Department of Propaganda. Bet that’s where your little Omega buddy is locked up.”

The Zedong school rises from the Courts, an impenetrable monolith.

“You’ll be able to walk around the Courts, if you like. But don’t expect much from any of the schools.”

Castiel has no place here. “What about the City?”

“Naomi’s forbidden you from entering the City.”

“I don’t understand,” Cas says. “Am I a prisoner? Am I a commander?”

“Neither. You’re gonna be our scout.”

“Scout,” Cas echoes. “On Earth?”

“Where else could we put you?” Chuck says, and turns up back towards the Station. “Hell, kid. You might be the first person to set foot on Earth.”

In the Commander’s quarters, Cas tries to sleep on a hard cot while Chuck breathes evenly on the other side of the room. He dreams of strange animals and tangled jungles, of a blue sky above and red earth below.

While the first probes are sent, Cas is put to work in the Courts. The ceiling is higher than the City. It occurs to Cas that the Sphere may be more of an oval. The streets are pale and clean, here, even without the Rains. Rather, people dispose of waste in bins and compactors, and sleek robots patrol the streets.

In the Bradbury school, Cas reviews the Alphas. Chuck shows him how to activate a screen reader on his comtab, and Cas delves deep into the files of every Alpha at the Station, studying sim results and psych profiles. Anael is a rarity, creative enough to bend the rules but never break them. Balthazar’s stubbornness and independence may prove useful in the wilds of Earth. 

The wilds of Earth are presented to him in lurid holographic detail, artist’s renderings of how animals might have evolved since the last nuclear wars. Castiel studies ancient graphics of a cockroach, The planet is generally assumed to be colder, now. In the Kloss spheres, Castiel learns how to make fire with a pile of sticks and a flint. 

Drug usage is rare, but in the Kloss spheres Cas discovers the old form of TetraCan, a tall plant with five-pointed leaves that fills the sphere with a heady perfume.

The Kloss spheres are the best part of his education. After his first night camping beneath tall ferns, Castiel practically starts living there. He learns about trees and how to climb them, that some plants have sharp thorns, that some leaves are edible and others will make him ill. The other Kloss students are wary of him, even his assigned instructor. But Jethro Kloss truly loves the gardens, and when he’s leading Cas down the leafy plants his enthusiasm overwhelms any innate fear he might have of an Alpha. His new hand is helpful, too, able to analyze any plant matter for nutritional content. 

Weeks fly by. Just to strip off his jumpsuit halfway and feel the lush air on his skin is a luxury. 

But Cas worries. He can search arrest records on his comtab, and sees that Claire was released after three days. No word on whether her mind was wiped, or whether she was put into the system. Surprisingly enough, there’s no data he can access on the Birthing.

Perhaps it’s time to slow reproduction rates, if the Sphere must extend resources outside of the Sphere. So Cas hopes, desperately, on the long quiet nights inside the forests. 

It’s deep in a grove of orange trees where he sees a familiar head bent over a comtab. Dean is perched at the base of a tree, leaning against the trunk and muttering to himself as he types.

“Dean?”

Dean looks up at him and nearly drops his comtab. “Jesus, Cas. What are you - how are you even alive?”

“I heard you might be up here. I thought you were a prisoner.”

“I am,” Dean says bitterly. “But, you know. They let me stretch my legs every so often. Even gave me an office. The Omegas Underground done expanded to the Courts. Not that I actually get to communicate with anybody. Nobody but these bougie fucks up here, telling me what to write and when.”

“Are you at the Zedong school?”

“Yeah. Listen to this shit, published under my old label. _Below: Wasteland or Paradise? What the Elites Don’t Want You to Know!_ Whew, right? Guess they gotta let the conspiracy nuts get their hands on it first.”

Cas hides his smile. He’s happy - thrilled - relieved to see Dean, but. 

Dean chuckles, sets his comtab aside. Looks down at his feet. 

“Forgot you can’t read it,” Dean offers awkwardly. “Never did get around to teaching you.”

“I could barely use my comtab at first.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re alive, but how? All this time I figured - fuck. Figured they were eating you already.” 

Cas looks at Dean and wonders what he can possibly say. 

Once the probes return, Cas may very well leave the Sphere to never return. In his wilderness survival classes, Castiel has learned how to operate a water distillation unit, how to skin a live chicken. 

This, right now, might be the last time he ever sees Dean.

So Cas sits beside him on the bench. Places his hands on his knees. The clean lines of his new hand look strange and hideous to him. He has already resisted the urge to tear it off.

“That’s not what I’d like to talk to you about.”

Dean looks like he’s about to say something, then swallows it back. “All right.”

“What happened between us, Dean? What happened with you and me?” Even now, mixed with the aroma of citrus, Dean scent still speaks to Castiel. He breathes it in, savoring it. 

“I don’t know,” Dean admits. “I just - I don’t know.” 

“Can I kiss you?”

Dean blinks at him. Moves in, parting his lips. 

They kiss, taking their time. Cas keeps his hands to himself, draws back to kiss Dean again, then again. Dean’s lips are cool, hesitant against his own. 

Finally, Cas pulls back, resting his forehead against Dean’s.

“Is it true what they’re telling me?” Dean whispers between them. 

“What are they telling you?”

“That we’re trapped in a dying ship. That we may be able to escape. Back to Earth. That they’re sending probes down there, even as we speak.”

“I’m going down after them.”

“You?”

“To protect the scientists. To explore the world.”

“Did you see it?”

“I saw it. I’ve never seen so much green before, not in my life.”

“Oh.” Dean pulls back a little, smiling sadly. “Well, that’s good. That’ll be good. You’ll make it out of the Sphere, at least.”

“I suppose.”

“I just. I never even thought that there was anything, you know? Now the light at the end of the tunnel’s here, I can’t even process it.”

“Earth will present new dangers,” Castiel says. “I mean, it’s entirely possible it’ll still be too radioactive. Or too cold. This may very well be a death sentence, for me.”

“You’re a guinea pig. You’re a fucking guinea pig and I’m just a cog in the propaganda machine.” 

They sit for a long while in silence, beneath the dappled light emanating from the top of the Kloss sphere. Finally Dean sighs, looks down at his comtab. “I better get going. But. Um. Do you come down here often?”

“I do.”

“Maybe I’ll see you around? Before you go.”

“Yeah. I’ll… see you around.”

Dean smiles awkwardly, turns to look back only once before walking away. Cas touches his lips with his true hand, wondering at the touch. 

The next morning, the probes return. Radiation levels considered safe for humans. Castiel goes through one last briefing with the scientists in a whirl of confusing holograms. He is outfitted and suited and stuffed into a ship at the top of the Station. The console matches exactly the flight simulators he’s flown hundreds of times, and his flight plan is straight down. Anael is his co-pilot, her large blue eyes terrified. But she follows orders, as a good Alpha does.

Cas thinks about the smell of oranges as he waits in long tunnel of a shaft. A terrible grinding sound fills the shaft, a door slides open, and Cas sees the stars before him.

The scientists - three Kloss, two Bradbury, and two doctors of Kelley are silent at the sight of it. A thin animal whine comes from Anael. 

Cas guns the engines, and travels down the side of the Sphere. The hull is dull, scratched, and goes on seemingly forever until finally they reach the bottom, revs the engine, and flies out of its orbit.

Once there, it seems much smaller than it did. 

The drones have already prepared the landing site. The Earth grows bigger, the green patch growing until Cas sees a vast scrubland in a valley, bordered by a glacier to the north and a range of jagged peaks to the south. Closer until Castiel can see the drones parked at the edge of a flat, dry strip. Already the pod of gear has landed, being rapidly disassembled by bots. 

The ship lands with a shudder. Airlocks hiss. Cas lets the scientists exit first. They move amongst their gear, talking to themselves, pulling out sigsticks and comtabs. Anael freezes, then bolts out after them. 

Cas ignores them all.

He takes one step outside of the airlock and feels the solid earth under his feet. Another step. One more. 

And then Castiel stands firmly on the Earth, looks across the land to where the earth meets the sky. Looks up to a clouded sun, feels the rays on his skin. 

The Sphere looks small from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at last i can confess that this story owes a great deal to wall-e


	17. Chapter 17

**PART 2**

 

* * *

 

 

The journals of Naomi’s predecessors are all catalogued neatly first in reels, then in flatscreen holos, then slim tablets that light up at the touch of the finger. Even older than the tablets are slim leather journals, and finally, a faded yellow pad sealed within film. 

Naomi breaks the seal and pulls out the first Captain’s journal. 

She has read it before. As her father before her had read to her, as her grandmother had read it to him. 

The first Captain writes with regret for the Earth left behind, nostalgia for his childhood home of New Moscow. Flight plans are detailed, and the Captain notes with worry that their Sphere is one of the last to depart. The terraformers have gone ahead, the ecologists and the technicians and engineers. They will land in an established city. 

But the Captain had looked at the stars, thought of the masses aboard his ship, and felt only fear.

Naomi lifts each fragile page with care. 

When she reaches the part where the communications fail, she puts it away. Pushes back in her chair and surveys her ancient console. Then she rises, moving toward a small panel at the end of her office, and enters her private quarters.

Stripping off her suit, she chooses a simple white shirt, a dark coat that belonged to her grandfather, and plain baggy pants. Undoing her hair, she rakes it through her fingers. From a small box she chooses an ancient sigstick, fully wired, and straps it to her head. Finally she chooses a small bottle of Omega pheremones, dusts herself with it, and then gives herself one last look in a flat mirror. 

The City is as crowded as she remembers from her younger years. When she was twenty years old and full of hope. The people pushing past her are eagerly playing films and scanning reels, and she makes a note to pick up a copy of Dean’s latest paper. She’s already reviewed the notes the Zedong school delivered, of course. But she’s curious about the final copy. 

Naomi moves through the City until she reaches the farming district. Or as the locals call it, the Meatgarden. She smells the stink of the factories. Sees barefoot young Omegas playing in the streets. 

Once upon a time, Naomi had come here holding her father’s hand. She walked through the factories here, watched the Omegas and Alphas form. So it had been for hundreds of years. 

Naomi blinks at the first touch of the Rains. The Rains are much more recent. It was her great-great-grandmother who first thought of it, after the first round of riots that nearly laid the City to waste. 

Humans scatter among the streets, ducking for shelter, but Naomi stands in the rain and wonders if it still rains on the Earth. If the children running down the street will live to see it. 

Somewhere up high, in hidden shafts very few have ever seen, are the landing pods and the ships. But the more she sees of the City, the more she wonders how it could all possibly translate on Earth. Half of the technology her citizens live with wouldn’t even be able to work on Earth. There are no energy grids, no plumbing systems, nothing. 

It could be years before a complete evacuation. 

A crackling at her ear alerts her that the Earth team will be sending their report soon. Naomi walks through the Rain, back through the City under the shadows of tall podblocks. 

Back in her office, she watches a scratchy feed of the scrubland below. The soil is dry and hard-packed on Earth, burnt by constant harsh winds. But there is water below, and, in time, as Carrie Kloss says, crops could be grown here. 

Much of the old continents have been covered by rising seas and then frozen over by glaciers. But they say the Alphas have explored the land in ten-mile radius around the base camp already. 

“Put one on,” Naomi says, and Carrie frowns. 

“The Alphas are… busy, Captain. They’re feeding right now.”

“I’d like a report from Castiel,” Naomi tells her firmly. “Tell him his dinner can wait a moment.”

Carrie looks terrified, and Naomi smiles inwardly. Disturbing an Alpha at its meal can be dangerous, indeed. But Castiel appears, looking nervous before the projector, still eating.

“Hello, Castiel. Tell me about Earth.”

Castiel glowers at the screen. Once again, Naomi is intrigued by the Alpha. Living proof that the breeding programs weren’t nearly as flawless as the ancient scientists thought. 

“Earth is… big,” Castiel says. 

“What are you eating?”

Castiel lifts his hands. He’s holding some sick monstrosity of a roach, the carapace cracked to reveal white flesh within. “These are cockroaches. They’re bigger than the ones I learned about. Lots of them down here.”

The scientists are visible just at the edges of the screen. Naomi knows that they must have hypodermic needles hidden somewhere on them, pumped with sedatives. But Castiel only takes another bite of roach, chews, swallows. Stands a little taller. Even through the static, his expression is insolent and proud. 

“Thank you, Castiel,” she tells him. “Now, Peter Kelley? Do you have my reports?”

Castiel furrows his brows like he has unanswered questions, but only walks away.  Earth suits him in a way the Sphere never did. The doctor throws nervous glances in the direction Castiel has disappeared to. 

They’re scared. Of course they are. At least there’s no Omegas down there yet to deal with. Throwing Alphas and Elites together is bound to be awkward enough. 

After her series of reports, Naomi ends the connection and lies back in her chair. Wonders how a society as carefully controlled as the Sphere can hope to break down. 

Then again, the Omegas Underground have been laying the groundwork for her already. 

If there’s one thing Naomi knows, it’s that change takes time. That a hairline crack will turn into a chasm, given long enough. That a chasm can swallow entire civilizations. 

Bringing up her private comtab, she sends a message to the young Omega currently stationed at the Zedong school. Dean is already well versed in propaganda techniques, and the mind of the surly Omega continues to impress her. The work he and his friends have done illuminating the secrets of the brood farms was good, if executed poorly. 

After that, she sends a message to the head of the official Courts dispatch, then to a few magazine editors, then to the heads of Propaganda themselves.  Almost immediately her screen floods with replies both furious and incredulous. Naomi sits back, folds her hands together, and wonders again at the first Captain of the Sphere.

For the first time, she understands his fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I originally figured I'd post this as two works in a series (which was, geez, nearly a year ago). We won't be in Naomi's POV forever, though, but the story breaks away from Castiel's single perspective here.


	18. Chapter 18

Dean has spent his entire life hating the Courts. Now that he’s trapped here, he hates them even more. All day he sits with these bourgeois puppetmasters, and he has to listen to them and play nice because if he doesn’t, he’ll never see anyone he ever knows again.

Sometimes he can’t believe people like Charlie and Kevin could come from a place like here. He spends his days in the Zedong schools, but he’s pretty sure the others are all the same. A bunch of fucking assholes who think they know everything. Trying to tell him how to write a god damned newspaper article. 

He has his own cell here in the schools, on the same level where the youngest Betas live. The poor suckers spend their entire lives in their school. But even the little kids already have their heads so far up their own ass, their lost causes already. 

In his private cell, Dean groans when his comtab blinks. More orders from that creepy Naomi lady. 

Then Dean nearly drops his comtab because the old fuck was saving all of his work. She’s sent him all of his old reel recordings from the Broodfarms. There’s pages and pages of notes alongside, the old articles he wrote. 

And now she’s telling him to clean up his work to be published in the freaking Court's Dispatch. He’s seen that paper, down in the City. He hasn’t read that rag since he was fifteen and freaking out when he first realized that he was truly infertile. 

Dean scowls and looks through her notes. 

Attached to his own files are a few reports - from the schools of Bradbury and Kelley, respectively, analyzing developmental differences between Omega and Alpha. 

Naomi wants him to point out the flaws in each study, and then release his own. She’s even given him a pass to access Kelley medical records. 

What the freaking hell. 

The last time Dean did anything like this he ended up drowning the City in fluoride. And he still can’t speak to any of his old friends back in the City. Swearing, Dean cocks back the comtab in his arm, ready to smash it for real. Naomi’s bullshitting him, tugging him around. Like Dean’s gonna fall for some evil dictator’s schemes.

Then again, the last time Dean wrote anything was before anyone had ever gone below. 

And now he’s thinking about Cas again, which is just fucking awesome. 

He’d gone to back to the Kloss spheres, waited in the gardens for hours. Then he’d overheard, at dinner, two older Zedong commanders lamenting about Dean’s own latest article. That they’d be swamped in work trying to change the entire narrative of Below. That they had to start calling it Earth, now.

Naomi had only replied to his six furious messages with a simple affirmative. So Cas was on Earth. So - someday -

The thing about Earth is that it represents the entire thing Dean has been working for his entire life. The complete destruction of the existing social order. Sam has always lectured Dean on being an unrepentant anarchist, but this is it. This is the wild fantasy that he’d clung to at the end of every long drunken debate he’s ever had. 

It’s completely mad to think that Dean could ever set foot on Earth one day. But if he does - if he does - 

He’ll see Cas down there, at least. 

And if Dean ever goes down, maybe other Omegas can go down. Maybe they can start from scratch. 

Dean flicks through the files Naomi has sent him again, taking notes on a separate holoscreen. Until his eyes grow weary and his mind is exhausted, until he’s so sickened by the Sphere he’d rather see it crash than allow any of the fucking Elites to walk down Below. 

Then Dean takes that anger and puts it into words. 

He’s been doing that for a long time, now. 

Dean works until the alarm on his comtab reminds him that it’s time for breakfast. He rubs his eyes, blearily. The food here is all supposedly real and it makes him feel nauseous thinking of his friends down below. Still eating the same shit.

In the dining hall Dean drinks black CF until the bile rises in his throat. It still tastes better than the stench of Betas surrounding him. Then he has a class on usage of propaganda on the Old Earth, a brief lesson analyzing commercials for sexual enhancements. As if Dean hasn’t already gone off on how disgusting it is that Betas appropriate the characteristics of other genders for personal pleasure already. 

The CF can only get him so far. By the time Dean makes it back to his cell he’s shaky and the thought of Go-bits makes him want to puke. Stretching out on his bed, he picks up his comtab intending to work, but sleep overtakes him.

Dean dreams of running through a heavily wooded forest, of cold air biting his skin. Something is running after him, and while he picks up the pace Dean feels no fear, only heady excitement. He runs and runs until someone pounces on him from behind. Tackles him to the forest floor.

Cas grins above him, naked and rippling with Alpha pheromones, and Dean wakes up wet and guilty and so, so fucking stupid. 

Fuck everything.

Dean picks up his comtab. Naomi has sent him several studies on Omega physiology and Dean can read about his own hormones in lurid detail. Swearing softly to himself, Dean learns about the role olfactory receptors play in attraction. The careful interplay used in constructing Alphas and Omegas, ensuring immediate sexual compatibility. 

Not for the first time, Dean’s mind flees back to the earliest humans. The standing apes who built the cities and technologies that destroyed their own planet. 

If they ever all make it back down there, all Dean hopes is that they learn from history. That whatever generations to come will look back, read maybe even words Dean has written himself, and see. Here’s how to not fuck up your entire species.

Sighing, Dean opens a fresh holoscreen, and begins to write.


	19. Chapter 19

Earth is somehow hot and cold all at once. It's nearly dusk, the sands turning purple while the pale sun starts to descend. The breeze is picking up, blowing sand that stings Castiel's eyes. He's taken quickly to wearing cloaks, something that can block wind and sand all at once, but he needs some form of eye protection. For now, Cas only tugs his hood a little lower and glowers up the roach. 

The thing about roaches is that they have six legs that can somehow cling to sheer fucking concrete. 

Cas is hungry and panting and he’s spent the entire day digging holes for some kind of terraforming devices the Kloss Betas say will help turn this desert into a garden. The roach rattles, taunting, then hisses and spits thick green slime Cas dodges. He’s already seen it turn sand to glass. Then it scurries up and into the ruins. Grimacing, Cas leaps, scrabbling for the edge and bracing his feet. He hauls himself up over the wall and into the darkness of the ruins. A few shafts of light spill through, illuminating cracked plaster and broken glass. 

Cas has no idea what this building may have been, thousands of years ago. Whatever the ancient humans left behind has long been buried and swept away, leaving only a few skeleton heaps of rubble. He hears rather than sees the roach scrabbling. Cas takes a step in the opposite direction, pauses to listen.

One more step.

The roach pounces, wings clacking together, sharp wiry legs aimed for his face. Cas drops and rolls before it can spit. It advances, opening its mouth, mandibles twitching. Their carapaces are hard as steel, but there’s one weak spot. Right between the mandibles.

Cas raises his new hand and shoots. 

Back at the base camp, the scientists are heating up water for their drypacs on the cookfires Cas spent all yesterday gathering fuel for. He wraps the roach tightly in foil and buries it among the coals. 

“Are you sure that’s safe to eat?” someone asks, and Cas glares at Leonard Kelley. Jethro, Carrie, and Joshua Kloss aren’t too terrible for Elites, but that’s only because they remember Cas from their gardens. 

“They’re supposed to be rich in protein,” Cas replies. He has no interest in playing the big dumb brute they expect. “And according to your own instruments, the levels of radiation remaining are safe.” 

“Did you find your… sister?” Beth Kelley asks. 

Even postmortem the roach hisses, but it’s only steam escaping through the carapace. Cracking it open with his new prosthetic, Cas discovers white, succulent flesh. “No,” he says, shortly. “She’s gone.”

"We were considering requesting some Omegas," Beth continues. "To... help you guys out, a bit." 

Freezing, Cas inhales the sweet steam from the roach. The Betas chuckle amongst themselves, and there's nothing Cas can think to say. 

Anael stayed for three days. Erecting the camp, digging trenches, following orders. And on the third day, she ran into the wasteland. 

Sometimes Cas thinks he could run. The horizons out here are endless and tempting. 

An Alpha truly could go mad out here. Red haze covers the skies at night, but sometimes Castiel sees stars. Harsh winds howl across the desert, chilling to the bone, but inside his tent, Cas only thinks of what he’s left behind on the Sphere.

Maybe Cas was expecting Earth to be a paradise. Maybe when he took his first breath of that sharp, clean air he thought this was a new start. Instead he’s laboring daily under the orders of the Elites. The sun beats down and the wind scrapes his skin while the scientists sit in their tents and play with their instruments. Sometimes he listens to them at night, crouched outside of their tents. Listens to them plan new cities and settlements. Arguing about breeding. Even Jethro is more willing to express his fear when Cas isn't around. They have a few Alpha sedatives, just in case. They speak of Alphas as animals, as Omegas as puppets, and it makes Castiel sick to hear them speak of taming the wasteland of Earth into some rigid structure they can easily fit into. 

The whole point of this is that it isn't the Sphere. That the population can expand and grow as it will; that here on Earth they don't need population control. Earth is open and free and the sheer size of the skies out here is enough to shatter everything Cas has ever known, and the Elites can't see it. If there's one thing Cas has learned so far, it's that Earth is something that can't be tamed. That this is what the old humans learned, right before they destroyed it.

The scientists transmit to Naomi nightly, and sometimes Naomi likes to patronize him in front of the scientists. It's always humiliating and never elucidating, and then he's shuffled off to go stoke a cookfire or dig a toilet. There might be questions Cas could ask her, but through the scratchy feeds she isn’t the quiet woman he spoke to that day beneath the great dome of her office. 

All in all, Earth isn’t quite the what he hoped. Then again, Cas doesn’t know what he ever hoped to find here. Whatever fantasies Claire had in childhood she kept to herself, and she went to jail for it. 

But there are rivers in the granite canyons lined with whip-like trees. Herds of rats and roaches rich with meat, forests of petrified wood that burn well. Anael ran away and Cas has no idea if she’s alive or dead, but he knows she must be happy. He knows she did what was right for her.

What’s right for Castiel is somewhere up in the Sphere. 

So he grits his teeth. He does his work. He waits.


	20. Chapter 20

Charlie spends more time in the intranet than out of it these days. With Dean’s disappearance and subsequent emergence in the form of strange articles about Below, the Omegas Underground is kind of wavering. Sam is trying to plan some kind of assault on the Courts to get Dean back, which is, yeah. Not gonna happen. 

In the web, Charlie surfs to the datalink ports and comhubs. Information passing in a mass of digits and code on the forums, live feeds connected to every single operating comtab. She’s on a dummy login right now, masquerading as a data transcriber from Bradbury. Someone who might have access, but say nothing. Only there to take notes. From here, she can reach into various coms and cams.

She can see the forum in her mind’s eye - the heads of every school, Naomi herself seated at the head of the long table. Charlie has only been there a few times, as a young student. Never for anything terribly important, just to stand and take notes. Now she does the same, only as a digital ghost. 

“There is no way we can publish this data,” the head of Medical is saying. “You’re talking about completely disrupting the Alpha-Omega program. We would unleash chaos upon the Earth.”

“Earth is chaos,” a Kloss argues. “Trying to impose the structures of the Sphere on it would only fail, miserably. Look at the team - one of the Alphas already ran away. We have no energy grid, and it would take years to set one up. Entire teams of Alphas working.” 

“So?” The Station’s commander activates his datalink. “The Alphas are built for it. My guys can have us up and running within two years.”

“Exactly!” The Kelley says. “Why not just wait? The Sphere has been hanging for over a thousand years, it’ll keep hanging. With all due respect, Captain, what you’re proposing is insanity.”

“With all due respect,” Naomi replies, “we simply do not have the time. Evacuation is our top priority.”

Datalinks spike and flurry. Charlie frowns, wondering. They called Naomi the Captain. That’s not a school she knows. 

“What about the Breeding?” a Doula argues. “The Alphas will go mad if we don’t Breed as scheduled.”

“The Alphas are already going mad,” the Kelley argues. “One of them already abandoned the mission.”

“We do not have the resources to carry out any breeding right now,” Naomi says. “And we cannot possibly create the infrastructure on Earth in time.”

“But what about the Omegas? At least, if we send down Alphas, we ought to send down some Omegas to keep them in line.”

“That’s ridiculous. Sustaining Omegas down there isn’t worth the resource expense. They can’t do anything beyond birthing. A few stray Alphas going crazy doesn’t affect us too badly.”

“We can’t afford to throw away genetic diversity like that!”

“The ship is dying,” Naomi continues, her data jumping in a thick red line over the chaos. “Our continued existence is a miracle. We don’t even have the fuel to make a proper landing, as I’m sure our scientists from Hawking can confirm.”

“Can confirm.”

“Thank you. I think some of us have forgotten that the Sphere was never intended for long-term habitation. We had a single destination and we failed. If anything, we should have evacuated centuries ago. Time is running out. Each time a piece of debris hits us, we fall lower in orbit. It’s only a matter of time until something larger strikes us. There are bigger things at stake here than population control, my friends. Omegas, Alphas, everyone needs to get off as quickly as possible. Now, as for the situation below, we are considering sending an Omega or two down. Obviously we must - ” 

Charlie barely remembers to log out before pulling her screen off her eyes. Unplugging her sigsticks and cables until she’s finally naked of tech and her hair falls down in her eyes. Her bangs are getting a little long; she ought to clip them sometime. 

She always had a feeling. Hell, she’s probably come up with even worse theories. There was a guy back at Bradbury who theorized that the Sphere was actually at the center of the Earth, sheltered from the fallout above. Kevin thinks that there’s multiple Spheres, all orbiting the Earth. 

Hearing the truth of it doesn’t give her satisfaction she’d hoped for. The tech in her hands is cold and slick. She looks into the void of a dead screen and thinks of nothing, for once. 

Until she gathers herself. Remembers who she is. Goes upstairs to the hub, abandoning Kevin where he’s still plugged in. Where Dev and Judah are bickering over a holofilm printer, where Sam is drinking CF like it’s water, where they turn up weary eyes to her and hold up the latest article Dean has written, straight from the official offices of Propaganda. 

There’s a still of the current Earth team. Cas is crouched before the scientists, facial hair grown scruffy. He’s looking distantly into the camera, like he’d rather be anywhere else but Earth, but he looks healthy. Like something in him has broken free outside the walls of the Sphere.

If they really do send down Omegas… Charlie considers the options. It’d be good if they could get a feed down there. Signals are hard to establish, but it’s obviously possible. Adam and Judah are no good. They’re too wary, too wrapped up in each other, and they never cared for Cas. It was hard enough befriending them for Charlie - coming from the Courts, she had a bad enough reputation to start with. Dev, on the other hand. She might be willing. She seemed to get along with Cas, in her own weird way.

A knock at the door comes while she muses. Sam opens and Claire is there, clutching the same issue. 

“Long time no see,” Sam says.

“I’m sorry about your car,” Claire says. “But that's not what I'm here for. Have you seen this shit?” 

The car _was_ returned, after all. A little scratched up and with a new dent by the bumper. Charlie almost laughs to think of it. Yeah. Her fucking car. Like that matters.

“I’m going Below,” Claire says, jerking her thumb at the still. “I’m going down there. You guys have Elites, right? You can hack and stuff. Get me down there. I’m not waiting anymore.”

Charlie frowns at the girl. She’s young, but. If she can find out how exactly they plan on selecting Omegas…

“Don’t be pushy,” she tells Claire. “They don't want Omegas down there yet. Besides, it's really dangerous."

"Please. In two weeks they're sending down another team of Elites, along with two Alphas. Bet you they can find a reason to throw an Omega or two in there, right? Besides, Cas is there, I'll be fine. You know what they're all up to in the Courts," Claire continues. "I know you do. Even your car was still registered in their system. So if you have any weight to pull? Pull it."

"Or what? You'll steal my car again?"

"I - I'll just - I'll just crash it into a wall or something and -" Claire sputters, and Charlie laughs. 

"Look. I don't - all right, everyone, listen up."

Sam puts down his coffee. Dev and Judah look up from the floor. Claire looks puzzled, but takes a seat. 

"We might all be going down, really, really soon. Okay? I've just been in the forums. I can show you all what's going on, if you like. But don't tell anyone yet, and don't go talking about Below, and for the love of the Sphere don't try to fly a ship through the brains like, I don't know, some kind of dumbass teenager." She looks at them all with her heart in her throat. "Look, guys. The next few weeks - or months or years or whatever - might be scary. Might be terrifying. But we're gonna be okay, all right? This is what we've been fighting for all along. This is what we've been working for."

Sam actually laughs. "So? What the hell is there to be afraid of?"

 

 

Sometimes Charlie wonders if her Elite training will break through at some point. There's no shortage of CF machines she could fill up with fluoridated water and then no one would have to worry and wonder and claw at the walls of the Sphere, ever. But Cas made it out. Cas made friends and learned how to think for himself and even if the system caught up to him, Cas let it happen. Because he cared about his daughter. Someone he should have never even met in his life. 

So she tells them what she's heard. She gives Sam the links he needs, shows Dev how to get into the forums. Finds flight plans and private mails, and lets the terror simmer quietly away on the backburner. She draws Claire's DNA samples and verifies her with the Omega logs under a new name, one without a criminal record. Lies about her age and puts her at the top of the psych evals as the most pliant, dumb, and sweet Omega the brood farms ever spit out. 

Before Claire leaves, Charlie slips a few CF seeds in her pocket for luck. She wishes she could give her some kind of feed or cam, but she's already seen the details of the thorough medical examination she'll get. Twenty-seven vaccines and birth control implants. Claire is braver than she'll ever be. Just the thought of going to Earth, of living in some wasteland without a solid intranet connection makes her want to curl up in the fetal position. 

Charlie moves almost permanently to the intranet. She can't quite figure out Naomi's private system - it's it's own intranet, running on ancient servers she can't even begin to hack - but she subscribes to the Zedong press. She tries and fails to reach Dean. 

Her dreams of Below are filled with terrifying insect figures mutated by nuclear fallout, of scorching winds that peel the skin off her flesh, of plagues of boils and skies raining acid. It's been a long time since Charlie encountered a problem she couldn't solve, of a mystery she couldn't uncover, and her imagination isn't pretty.

Then again, Cas is looking stronger every time she catches a glimpse of him. Frozen in stills, carrying terraformer units behind the scientists, occasionally showing up in the forums so Naomi can ask him patronizing questions. It's almost a month before she sees Claire.

The scientists are talking about the glaciers, but in the background Cas and Claire are tiny figures running across the horizon. Just two blurry forms in the lines of static, but she can see the long blonde hair, the arms flung out.


	21. Chapter 21

Below is big and cold and scary and gorgeous and Claire doesn’t know what to do with her feet. She could run into that horizon. She could bury herself under the scrubby grass. She could open her mouth and inhale all of that fresh air until she bursts. Her arm still hurts from all the inoculations and the two Alphas she came here with are still terrifying but once she sets foots on Earth, she forgets everything.

Cas finds her in the swirl of scientists and Alphas and tilts his head at her, smiling. He looks different. A little less like her. 

It was easy to realize Cas was her sperm donor. Maybe Claire will tan as well as he did. Maybe her muscles will get bigger like his. 

“Brothers,” Cas says, greeting the Alphas. They’re both taller than Cas and couldn’t look less alike. In the Sphere they were terrifying but here they look timid, frightened. Claire notes the wide berth they give her, the way they try to hide the fact that they’re scenting her. Suddenly she’s horribly aware of her body. This is what Nicole tried to keep her safe from.

Nicole cried before she left. Claire was going into slavery, she said. As a comfort creature for Alphas. 

“Like we aren’t that already?” Claire had said, and that was bad. That was really fucking bad, and Claire didn’t even get a chance to apologize, and now back up in the Sphere Nicole is missing her. She should have told her about Cas. Then again, it was hard for Claire to parse why she trusted Cas at first. 

Now Claire plants her feet on the solid Earth and looks at her father. 

“Huh. You made it out,” he says.

“It’s cold.” Claire shivers, looks at the Alphas. 

“Go see the doctors,” Cas says briskly. “Brothers? With me, for a moment.”

The Alphas cast lingering looks before following. Claire stares after them for a moment as they make their way beyond the settlement, getting smaller in the distance. 

The Kelleys give her more inoculations. A can of mace and a syringe of birth control. Their hands are quick and dismissive. 

“We’ve already lost one Alpha,” a doctor tells her. “Are you sure you can make them stick around?”

“I’ll do my best,” Claire says, suddenly meek. 

When she’s dismissed she’s left quite alone with nothing to do. The Alphas are still gone and no one seems interested in her anymore. So she walks around the camp, exploring the thin greenery. Odd insects leap in the sand. A massive stag beetle lumbers over the dunes. The sand sucks her feet down, making progress hard, and despite the chill Claire finds herself sweating. She keeps walking, while the tents grow smaller behind her and the cliffs to her left seem to stay the same size. She wonders, if she just kept going, how long it would take to reach them. 

By the time she makes it back to camp it’s nearly dark. No rain falls, and the air seems too dry. Cas returns with only one of the Alphas, the dark one, each bearing dead roaches. 

“Help me gather fuel,” Cas tells her. He looks exhausted but Claire follows him, sneaking only one glance back at the lone Alpha.

“Where’d the other go?”

“Our sister is a three-day journey that way,” Cas says, pointing towards the sunset. “Tracking a herd of ungulates. They’re a good source of meat, she says, and following them leads to clean water sources. See, you need to gather the dry branches. They burn quickly.”

“Oh.” Claire drops the green leaves in her hand and chooses a dried, dead branch. “Like this?”

“Perfect. You know, Anna says her herd’s shit makes good fuel. Stinky, but it works.”

“Are you sending all the Alphas out there?”

“That’s the idea,” Cas grins. “We’re supposed to be - I don’t know. Building an energy grid here. Tell me, Claire. Do you think we can really rebuild the City here?” 

Claire looks to the fading light falling on the sands. “If we rebuild the City, then what’s the point of even coming down here?”

“Exactly. Hopefully, in the future, more of us can leave. But - I just - I don’t know. If the Alphas happen to go into rut, we might have an issue.”

“But you don’t go into rut, right?”

“I think the rut is just an exaggerated drug frenzy,” Cas says. “But I’d rather wait it out and see.”

“I have mace.”

Cas chuckles at that. “That should be enough wood for dinner. Come on, kiddo.”

"Kiddo?" Claire asks with distaste, and Cas looks away. 

 

The Elites blame Claire for the one Alpha leaving. Cas blames it on a sudden frenzy of rage, of a madness brought on by the wild. Claire says nothing. She spends most of her time with Cas anyways. Sometimes Uriel comes along on their scouting journeys. When a beetle hisses at her Uriel goes out and smashes it to smithereens, wasting the meat, and he still is too scared to actually say a word to her. 

It’s not like Claire doesn’t know exactly what the Betas think she’s doing with the Alphas, but she doesn’t really care to correct them. 

Besides, going out with Cas and Uriel is fun. The Alphas are faster than her, but it’s exhilarating to try to keep up with them. In the mornings Claire’s legs are sore but she knows she’s getting stronger. Getting bigger. 

Most of the time the Alphas are busy anyways. Claire is given new tasks, like fetching water and cooking and washing laundry. It would bug her but for the little smirk Cas gets on his face sometimes. But for the journeys Cas and Uriel take privately, when they go to see the other Alphas. At night, in their shared tent, Cas whispers strange ideas and stories. About the way rushing water clean of chemicals tastes, about catching fish in streams, about the berries and bulbs and roots to be discovered out there. 

Cas has a vision, she learns. Cas is already thinking about a different way of life. After this generation passes on, there’ll be no more Alphas or Omegas or even Betas anymore. Just humans. Just humans and the Earth and whatever they find. Working together and surviving together. It’s all a little much for Claire to process, but when Cas spins out his stories in the dark, she can believe it.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um, there's no reason for this to be posted so late except for that fact that i am a big dumb with too many irons in the fire. anyways, I can't believe i've written over 40k of A/B/O without a single knotting scene. how? why? where did my life go wrong?
> 
> note: i've said this before, but sam and dean are not brothers here in this au! and yet somehow this isn't a sam/dean fic.

_HARD KNOTS & HARD DRUGS: somthing abt the rut idk_

Maybe just the first part is fine. But - no. it’s missing something. The article itself details the chemistry of the Rut drugs. Nothing like a dry and clinical analysis of fucking rape drugs to make Dean feel like chucking his lunch. He’s almost immune to it. Almost.

They say the Alphas on Earth are going mad with withdrawal. Abandoning camp and going feral. Cas never seemed feral in the City, though, and so Dean wonders.

After all, Dean was the one who initiated everything with him. Cas replied according to his nature. Heated hands and mind-bending kisses. Shifting in his seat, Dean remembers the first time he felt wet between his legs. Not like the other Alphas, right. Just like how Dean wasn’t like the other Omegas, right up until he’s slick and whimpering for an Alpha.

Closing out the unfinished article, Dean goes back to the Earth reports. Whatever the other Alphas are doing, Cas hasn’t gone feral yet. Apparently he’s grown close to Claire, but Dean knows Cas isn’t fucking his daughter. 

So what is he doing, then?

With a sigh, Dean scoots back from his desk. Even compared to his cot, it’s the largest thing in the room. Comtabs and holofilms blink and chatter up at him, incessant as always. Outside his door is the constant chatter and datarush of the Zedong school, bylines and headlines until he can’t fucking think straight. 

It’s already night in the Courts, the day having flown by. Inside the Kloss spheres a few fireflies drift, the cloning tents glow white as cuttings take root. 

Earth doesn’t look like this. Earth is freezing dust storms and sand scraped over bedrock and scraggly bushes clinging to survive. Earth is the wastes of a civilization that once was. According to the history holos, Earth didn’t even look like this before the Spheres were built. Steel and concrete and industrial fumes and then, the final bomb. 

Dean wonders if there’s anywhere on Earth as humid as it is here in the Kloss spheres. Then he pulls out his comtab. Scrolls through his limited contacts. He knows Charlie is in the web, and Kevin and Sam and the rest must be looking for him, but they’re as lost to him as the City is now. 

There’s a new message in his inbox he really wants to ignore. But the sender isn’t anyone from Propaganda, or Naomi, or anyone he recognizes.

Dean opens the message. Nearly drops the comtab, swearing.

Fucking Sam has a way of pulling this kind of crap. 

The thing about Sam is he’s a peacemaker right up until he explodes. Sam is solid Beta through and through until it actually matters. And the kicker is, even then, Sam still thinks about it. If he’s in a good place to express his frustration, or if he has to play a different role. 

Unlike Charlie and Kevin, Sam isn’t an Elite. Doesn’t make him any easier for Dean to get along with. 

Sam’s update is succinct and to the point. He doesn’t bother to say how the hell he made contact with Dean, which is kind of surprising. Maybe he didn’t want to brag, for once. Sam does have about thirty or forty different fake IDs floating around the web he isn’t careful enough with. Drop one, start up another. This latest ID isn’t anyone Dean’s seen before. Sam is scraping the bottom of the barrel of proxies. 

Dean’s latest writing isn’t his best, and Sam drags him a bit for it. Claire is on Earth - Dean knew that. Charlie sits in the forums while headlines blare in the streets. One of Sam’s neighbors is now convinced that she was secretly born an Alpha, but so far Sam hasn’t gotten to see her dick yet. Earth is kind of gross looking, and Sam wonders why they haven’t set down archaeologists to excavate the old ruins yet. Adam and Judah are pretty vocal about not wanting to go to Earth, ever, while Dev and Kevin want to fake a meteor scare to cause a sudden mass evacuation. Dinners at the Omegas Underground HQ are fun, to say the least. Sam is wildly curious about the Zedong school and wants to know why the fuck they haven’t started up a reality show on Earth yet.

 _You and Cas can release the first ever actual Alpha/Omega sex tape,_ Sam writes. Set on Earth. _Do a whole primal Neanderthal Earthling theme & GET RICH. _

Yeah, Sam can fuck the right the fuck off. Dean eloquently informs him of the ninety seven ways he can fuck off in graphic detail. Holds back from panicking about how the hell he knew about Dean and Cas and whatever the hell went down between them.

And yeah, Sam has a good idea. Sam has a damn good idea. 

The mass media, not the news, is how change starts. The first few years of the Omegas Underground were a floundering mess. Hell, even their biggest reveals were just shoved under the rug. As much as Dean wanted to shake up the City like a goddamn snow globe, people move slow. Too slow for Dean’s tastes.

As a postscript, Sam mentions the Omegas Underground hasn’t published anything since Dean got arrested. Since the broodfarm issue. But the back issues are selling like _wild._

By the time Dean finishes his reply, Sam’s newest fake address is already taken down. Sighing, he closes out and flicks to his recent contacts again. Naomi is still at the top.

The temperature drops in the Kloss sphere, and a cool mist starts to spray the plants. Dean leaves with his coat wet, travels through the quiet streets of the Courts, all the while composing his message. Just before he goes to bed, he sends it.

Not two hours later Naomi wakes him up. 

Groggy, Dean blinks at her. Wonders how the hell she’s so composed. 

“If you wish to go to Earth, you only need to ask,” she says immediately. “I assume you want to be with your mate.”

Just the way she says mate sets Dean on edge. Sitting up in bed, he positions his comtab on his knees so Naomi can look right up his nose. And how the hell would she know, anyways? 

“It’s a hell of a lot more efficient than what you got me doing right now.”

“Our datalinks aren’t ready yet. Transmission from Earth is patchy, at best. And progress on the energy grid is, frankly. pathetic.”

“And the Alphas are going feral.”

Naomi smiles, thinly. “Castiel is in command of the Alphas. I’m not sure what their situation is.”

“Somehow, I find that hard to believe. You not knowing something? Gimme a break.”

“Castiel doesn’t like me.”

“Geez. I wonder why.”

“My job isn’t to be liked.”

“No. Your job is to spoon-feed lies to your people,” Dean snaps. If Naomi’s job is to not be liked, she’s done a damn good job. But now she’s actually nodding.

“You work in media, Dean. You understand the delicate position we occupy. Castiel hating me is, in fact, the very best thing for humanity right now. Do you know what he’s doing?”

Dean picks up his comtab. Scoots back on his bed. “I’m guessing you do.”

“The Elites wish to recreate the City. After centuries of segregation, they would rather avoid mixing with the lower classes and genders. How do your fellow Zedongs treat you?”

Shifting his position, Dean grimaces. That’s all the answer Naomi needs.

“The brutal fact is, going to Earth requires a complete upheaval of everything. For generations we have imposed our absolute structures out of necessity. And now, just when they’ve become a part of our collective culture, we must break them. We are traveling backwards in our evolution, and yet it’s the only way to go forward. In the Sphere, primalism is frowned upon. On Earth, it’s a requirement. Your friend Castiel is extraordinarily primal. He is allowing the Alphas to return to nature. To learn to survive off the land, without drugs. To even integrate Omegas peacefully. Castiel hasn’t shared his vision with me. I expect he’ll keep in secret for as long as he feels he has to. But while the Elites try to build their City, while we flounder and fail in the name of progress, he will be there. A new model of human society will grow and flourish, outside the old model, and the best part? It won’t be new at all.”

“You sent Castiel to the City. That was - this was his training ground.”

“I only thought of sowing seeds. Integrating an Alpha with society was the first step. But between Castiel and his daughter - and you, of course, change is coming faster than I ever imagined.”

“You wanted this?”

“I want to preserve the stability of a fragile society. I want to have good results in the polls. I want to quiet the prophets of doom in the forums. I want many things, Dean.”

The one thing Naomi wants to be a good Captain. Dean hears it, between the words.

For thousands of years the Sphere has been one thing. Now that the center is falling apart - Dean can’t exactly act like he didn’t play a role in this. Like this wasn’t what he wanted, all along. He supposes he'd never thought of the powers that be as anything other than a monolith. But then Dean thinks about thousands of fragile lives suspended in space with no hope, nothing outside of whatever they could possibly construct. There's a reason why humans stick to the things they know, after all. 

A good leader should be able to change. A good scientist changes their theories according to new information. Naomi is not a good leader, nor a good scientist. But she is the Captain of the Sphere, and there are deep lines under her glazed eyes. Not enough sleep and too many screens. For the first time it occurs to Dean that she isn’t quite as astute as she looks. Not a hair out of place, sure, but when Dean looks in her eyes he can’t see a single fragment of a soul. 

“It’s three in the morning,” Dean tells her. “You should get some sleep.”

"CF injections," Naomi says. Like it's something to be proud of. "Give them a try sometime."


End file.
